About Me
Awards
1995 Society Award by America's Future Foundation.
Novak Journalism Fellow for The Fund for American Studies.
1856 Society Award by the Young Republican National Federation.
Recognized by the President of the United States during the National Day for the Victims of Communism.
Rising Leader Fellow from the Heritage Foundation.
Institute for Humane Studies Fellow
Daniel Di Martino was born in 1999 in Venezuela to a middle class family. His grandparents escaped poverty in Italy and Spain in the 1950s, seeking a better future in the then 4th richest country in the world, Venezuela. Italy was destroyed by fascism and World War II and Spain by the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime’s autarkic economic policies. Yet, despite not having a high school education and some having to learn a new language, his family started businesses and prospered under Venezuela’s relatively free market and strong democracy in the second half of the 20th century. But Daniel was born in the same year that Hugo Chavez was sworn in as President and saw how his socialist policies transformed the once prosperous nation that welcomed his grandparents into a poor and dangerous place. His family’s income was drastically reduced due to inflation, blackouts and water shortages increasingly plagued much of his life, and he was forced to line up for food and basic necessities for hours.
Roles
Graduate Fellow at the Manhattan Institute
Founder of the Dissident Project
PhD candidate in Economics at Columbia University
Board of advisors member and Speaker at YAF’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise.
Board member at Incubate Debate
Hispanic Advisory Board member at the Heritage Foundation
In 2016, he left Venezuela to attend Indiana University in Indianapolis thanks to a full-tuition scholarship that is awarded to only one international student per year. From Indiana, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with honors and the highest distinction in Quantitative Economics on December 2019. He then went on to pursue a PhD in Economics at Columbia University in New York City where he is currently a 5th Year PhD candidate focused on immigration economics, especially in assimilation, selection, and the fiscal impact of immigrants.
Daniel has been featured on national TV dozens of times, being interviewed in Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, Newsmax, NTD News, and many other TV channels and radio stations discussing everything from what’s happening in Venezuela, to the impact of socialist policies in America, economics, foreign policy, and immigration.
He has written op-eds and articles for outlets such as the USA Today, National Review, City Journal, and The Daily Wire.
Daniel is also a sought-after public speaker who lays out the problems of socialism using his story and knowledge to connect with diverse audiences. He speaks at college campuses through Young America’s Foundation, and he is a board member at their Center for Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise.
