Dr. Eric Zillmer - Sport Administrator - Wrestling Support Staff

Dr. Eric Zillmer

Title:
Sport Administrator
Email:
sports@drexel.edu
Phone:
215-895-1977

Dr. Eric A. Zillmer is the Director of Athletics and Carl R. Pacifico Professor of Neuropsychology at Drexel University in Philadelphia. A licensed clinical psychologist who received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Florida Tech, Zillmer completed internship training at Eastern Virginia Medical School and a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical neuropsychology at the University of Virginia Medical School.

Now in his 22nd year as Director of Athletics, Dr. Zillmer oversees all components of the Athletics Department, which provides recreational opportunities and programming for over 25,000 students and 6,000 faculty and professional staff. During his tenure as AD, Dr. Zillmer was instrumental in the creation of the Drexel athletics logo, extensive renovations at the Vidas Athletic Complex, the creation of a new 84,000 square feet Rec Center, the transfer of the Armory to Drexel University, and securing the winning bids for the 2008 Olympic Trials in Table Tennis, the U.S Open in squash, as well as the 2012 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Quarterfinals at PPL Park and the 2013, 2015, 2016, 2019 and the 2020 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship at Lincoln Financial Field.

Drexel Athletics was named #1 in the nation in Gender Equity by U.S. News and World Report and the Pennsylvania Law Project listed Drexel as one of the top five athletic programs in the state in terms of gender equity. In 2008 Drexel Athletics received a national Top 5 Award by the NCAA for Overall Excellence in Diversity. A member of Drexel University’s faculty since 1988, Dr. Zillmer is a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the American Psychological Association, the Society for Personality Assessment and the National Academy of Neuropsychology for which he has also served as President. Zillmer has written extensively in the area of sports psychology, neuropsychology, and psychological assessment, having published more than 100 journal articles, book chapters, and books, and he is a frequent contributor to the local and national media including CNN, MSNBC, New York Times and the Wall Street Journal on topics ranging from sports psychology, forensic psychology, to the psychology of terrorism. Dr. Zillmer’s books have been translated to an international audience including Czech, Chinese and Portuguese. The 2nd edition of Principles of Neuropsychology (2008), has been used in over 300 Universities world-wide, including Georgetown University, Vanderbilt University, Brigham Young University, Hong Kong University, and the University of Florida. The Quest for the Nazi Personality (1995) has been summarized as the definitive psychological analysis of Third Reich war criminals.

Dr. Zillmer is also the co-author of the Tower of London-Drexel and the English version of the d2 Test of Attention. Military Psychology (2^nd edition, 2012) examines the psychological contexts involved in the most recent military initiatives and geopolitical events. Related to this publication Dr. Zillmer was invited by the Pentagon as a Distinguished Visitor to travel to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and by the Pennsylvania National Guard to visit war-torn Bosnia.

He also serves on the Executive Board of the Philadelphia Sports Congress, the Boards of the Philadelphia Classical Guitar Society, the International House Philadelphia, and the Austrian Society of Pennsylvania and the Advisory Board of SquashSmarts. Born in Tokyo, Japan, and raised in Europe, Dr. Zillmer is bilingual in English and German. He has a passion for art and has exhibited work as part of Manifesta7 in Trento, Italy and with Yoko Ono in Philadelphia. He studies the classical guitar and is a frequent producer and participant of Guitar Salons. He enjoys golf, tennis, court tennis, and squash and riding his Harley and Vespa. Dr. Zillmer comes from a sports-oriented family; his father played baseball for Army '44, and his mother coached his sister on the Olympic team in figure skating (Grenoble, France 1968).