Sex and The Ivy League
Columbia University and the Glass Ceiling
Home Page
Support Committee for Graciela Chichilnisky
At this site you will find material relating to discriminatory treatment by Columbia University of its female faculty, and in particular the experience of Graciela Chichilnisky, UNESCO Professor of Mathematics and Economics at Columbia University, New York. Throughout most of her distinguished and productive career there, a career which began in 1977, she has tried to focus on her research on economics and mathematics, keeping her difficulties with the department and with administrators relatively private. However at present she is in a protracted legal fight and has been persuaded by this Support Committee that the time has come to reach out to the larger community about the successes and problems experienced by women in academia.
For a brief sketch of her case, click here (thumbnail).[ For a longer history of her life, her work in mathematics and economics, and her problems in academia, click here (The Sex and the Ivy League).]
Her story reverberated with many other women. The Legal Advocacy Fund of the 160,000 member American Association of University Women (AAUW) (www.AAUW.org), has adopted her case. Members of We Advocate Gender Equity (WAGE)(www.wage.org) are active in the Support Committee for Graciela Chichilnisky.
We thank you for your interest in her story. We hope that sharing it leads us one step nearer to equal treatment for women in academia.
From the INTERNATIONAL BIOGRAPHICAL CENTRE, Cambridge CB2 3QP England
One Thousand Great Americans
Graciela Chichilnisky
Columbia University
Graciela Chichilnisky holds the UNESCO Chair of Mathematics and Economics and is a Professor of Statistics at Columbia University. She is Director of Columbia? Center for Risk Management and created Columbia? Program on Information and Resources (PIR), which is focused on transforming the University? teaching and research agenda to reflect the growing trend towards globalization and sustainable development. In 1995, the PIR program attracted major support from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Professor Chichilnisky, recipient of the 1995 Lief Johansen Award from the University of Oslo, has been the 1994-95 Salinbemi Professor at the University of Siena. She introduced the concept of Basic Needs, which was adopted by 150 countries in the United Nations Earth Summit and appears in UN Agenda 21 as the central element of their strategies for sustainable development. She also introduced new financial instruments to deal with environmental risks, Catastrophe Bundles. At an invited address in the 1995 annual meeting of the World Bank, she proposed the global trading of carbon emissions, which became part of the Kyoto Protocol adopted by 166 nations in December 1997, and advocated the creation of an International Bank for Environmental Settlements to regulate this.
A tenured professor at Columbia since 1979, she has been Director of its Program on Information and Resources since its founding in 1994. She taught previously at Harvard, Essex and Stanford Universities and was from 1985-90 chairman and chief executive officer of FITEL, a financial telecommunications corporation active in New York, London and Tokyo. She has served as advisor to many international organizations, including the United Nations Economics Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, in the areas of international economics and environmental policy. Chichilnisky is a former member of the Presidential Cabinet of the Central Bank of Argentina, an active consultant to the United Nations on international trade issues and the global financial industry on derivatives and reinsurance, and a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Program on Climate Change (IPCC).
The author of thirteen books and some 200 scientific articles published in the preeminent academic journals covering economics, finance and mathematics, Professor Chichilnisky holds two PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. Her doctorates in Mathematics and Economics were awarded respectively in 1971 and 1976.
Professor Chichilnisky is a member or former member of the Board of Directors of CrossBorder Exchange, Board of Trustees of the National Resources Defense Council, the Mediterranean College and the editorial boards of leading professional journals, including Advances in Applied Mathematics, Review of Economic Studies, Economic Letters, Journal of International Trade and Economic Development and Journal of Development Economics. She is listed in Who? Who in the World, Who? Who in America, Who? Who in Science and Engineering, Who? Who in Education and is listed in the Dictionary of International Biography among the world? 2,000 most outstanding scientists of the 20th century. A native of Argentina, Professor Chichilnisky is a U.S. citizen, the mother of two children, and a resident of New York City.
