The UNESCO Chair of Mathematics and Economics at Colombia University

Graciela Chichilnisky holds the UNESCO Chair of Mathematics and Economics. She is also a Professor of Statistics at Columbia University and the Director of Columbia’s Center for Risk Management (CCRM). She created Columbia’s Program on Information and Resources (PIR), which is focused on transforming the University’s teaching and research agenda to reflect the growing trend towards globalization and sustainable development. Since 1995, the PIR program attracted major support from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) from six leading reinsurance companies and the Sloan Foundation.

According to the Washington Post:

Nobel laureates laud her work and call her brilliant; some economists credit her with an important economic theory. She is involved in the economics of fighting global warming internationally, and she was recently elected to the university senate.....

She has two doctorates, in math and economics. It is a combination that allows her to mix social science with hard sciences, according to other economists.

Her work involves issues affecting sustainable development around the world, and she is a key contributor to the economic theory behind the movement to use credits in global markets to control carbon emissions to reduce global warming.

She has taught at several universities, including Harvard, and served as adviser to many international organizations, including the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the United Nations in the areas of international economics and environmental policy.