Biography

Djavad Salehi-Isfahani is an associate of the Middle East Initiative. His previous appointments include Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania (1977-84), visiting faculty at the University of Oxford (1991-92), visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution (2007-08), Research Fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy School (2009-2010), Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Belfer Center's Middle East Initiative (MEI), Harvard Kennedy School (fall 2013), and joint MEI/Iran Project Visiting Scholar (2016-17). He has served on the Board of Trustees of the Economic Research Forum (2001-2006), a network of Middle East economists based in Cairo. He has been affiliated with the ERF as a Research Fellow since 1993 and currently serves as a member of its Advisory Committee. He is Associate Editor of the Economic Research Forum's biannual journal, Middle East Development Journal, which publishes rigorous policy research on the Middle East and North Africa. He has also served on the Board of the Middle East Economic Association.

His research has been in demographic economics, energy economics, and the economics of the Middle East.  More information about his research and other writings can be found on his personal web page: https://djavadsalehi.com.

Dr. Salehi-Isfahani attended high school in Neishabour, Iran, and then, using a Central Bank scholarship, went to England in 1967 to study economics. He obtained his BSc (Econ) from the University of London in 1971 and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1977. He is currently Professor of Economics at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.

Last Updated: Aug 25, 2021, 2:25pm

Awards