[1][2][3][4][5] A highly cited expert in his field,[6] his research interests are in computational chemistry and biology and computer-aided drug design (CADD).
After postdoctoral appointments with Roald Hoffmann from 1986 to 1987 and Peter Kollman from 1987 to 1989, he started his academic career at the Pennsylvania State University.
[9] While at the Pennsylvania State University he took a sabbatical to work in the biopharmaceutical industry (1998-2001) as the senior director of the Center for Informatics and Drug Discovery (CIDD) at Pharmacopeia, Inc. and as the senior director of the ADMET Research and Development Group in the Accelrys software division of Pharmacopeia.
[15] In 2013, Merz moved to Michigan State University as a professor in the Chemistry and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Departments.
[1] He was the director of the Institute of Cyber-enabled Research (2013-2019) and is the Joseph Zichis Chair in Chemistry and a university distinguished professor.