Jeffrey Sachs

Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals, which seek to reduce extreme poverty, disease, and hunger by 2015. Sachs is renowned for his work as an economic advisor to governments around the world, and his work with international agencies on problems of poverty reduction, debt cancellation for the poorest countries, and disease control. In 2004 and 2005, Sachs was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. He is author or co-author of more than two hundred scholarly articles, and has written or edited many books. Prior to his arrival at Columbia University, Sachs spent over twenty years at Harvard University, most recently as Director of the Center for International Development and Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. Sachs was born in Detroit, Michigan. He received his B.A. from Harvard College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.