Graciela Chichilnisky

{{Infobox academic

| image = Graciela Chichilnisky Economist.jpg

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1946|03|27}}

| birth_place = Buenos Aires, Argentina

| citizenship = United States

| workplaces = {{ubl|Columbia University|Stanford University}}

| education = {{ubl|Massachusetts Institute of Technology|University of California, Berkeley (MA, PhD, PhD)}}

| doctoral_advisor = {{ubl|Jerrold Marsden (PhD in mathematics)|Gerard Debreu (PhD in economics)}}

| website = {{url|https://chichilnisky.com/}}

| children = 2, including E.J.

}}

Graciela Chichilnisky (born March 27, 1946) is an Argentine-American economist known for her work in economics and climate change. A professor of economics and statistics at Columbia University and visiting professor to Stanford University, her economic research is marked by the application of mathematics and topology, as well as research in international and development economics.{{Cite web |title=Is Outdated Economics Threatening Western Civilization? |url=https://www.ia-forum.org/Content/ViewInternalDocument.cfm?ContentID=8549 |access-date=April 17, 2024 |website=International Affairs Forum}} She is also co-founder of the direct-air capture company Global Thermostat, and served as its CEO from its founding in 2010 until she stepped down in 2022.{{Cite web |last=Hiar |first=Corbin |date=2022-01-31 |title=Exxon-backed carbon removal firm looks for new leader |url=https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2022/01/31/exxon-backed-carbon-removal-firm-looks-for-new-leader-ee-00003238 |website=E&E News |language=en |agency=Climatewire}}

Personal life and education

Graciela Chichilnisky was born {{Circa}} March 27, 1946Sources vary; some primary sources and encyclopedia entries list the year 1944, while the Library of Congress and Marquis Who's Who list the date March 27, 1946:

{{Cite book |last=Chichilnisky |first=Graciela |url=https://chichilnisky.com/wp-content/uploads/1976/01/Manifolds-of-Preferences-and-Equilibria.pdf |title=Manifolds of Preferences and Equilibria |date=1976 |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |type=Dissertation |quote=CHICHILNISKY, Graciela, 1944-}}
{{Cite web |title=Graciela-Chichilinsky-Interview-for-Oxford-Journal-of-Research-7.2015.pdf |url=https://chichilnisky.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Graciela-Chichilinsky-Interview-for-Oxford-Journal-of-Research-7.2015.pdf |publisher=Graciela Chichilnisky |via=chichilnisky.com |quote=Graciela Chichilnisky (*1944) acted as a US Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which received the 2007 Nobel Prize.}}
{{Cite book |last=Rodriguez |first=Julio |title=Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America |date=2014 |publisher=Gale |editor-last=Riggs |editor-first=Thomas |edition=3rd |volume=1 |pages=141–150 |chapter=Argentinean Americans |quote=Graciela Chichilnisky (1944–) is a mathematical economist and an expert on climate change. |chapter-url=//link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3273300021/GVRL?u=wikipedia&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=7eb214df}}
{{Cite web |title=Chichilnisky, Graciela |url=http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n83181966 |access-date=April 16, 2024 |website=LC Linked Data Service |publisher=Library of Congress |quote=(Graciela Chichilnisky) data sheet (b. 03-27-46)}}
{{Cite book |title=Who's Who in American Education 2006–2007 |date=2005 |publisher=Marquis Who's Who |isbn=0-8379-2708-0 |edition=7th |pages=299 |chapter=Chichilnisky, Graciela}} in Buenos Aires, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants.{{Cite news |last1=Kaufman |first1=Leslie |last2=Rathi |first2=Akshat |date=April 8, 2021 |title=A Carbon-Sucking Startup Has Been Paralyzed by Its CEO |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-04-09/inside-america-s-race-to-scale-carbon-capture-technology |work=Bloomberg.com |language=en}} Her father was a professor of neurology at the University of Buenos Aires and a friend of Juan Perón. Chichilnisky received high school education at the Instituto National de Lenguas Vivas, additionally taking science classes at the local university. After a coup, the military closed the University of Buenos Aires, and professor Warren Ambrose fled to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), taking six students—including Chichilnisky—with him. Chichilnisky's son E.J. Chichilnisky was born while Graciela was in high school, and she was raising him as a single mother at the time of her move to MIT.

Chichilnisky, who had no formal undergraduate education, was accepted to MIT, and matriculated into the doctoral program in mathematics with support from a Ford Foundation scholarship. While in the doctoral program, she was advised by Norman Levinson.{{Cite book |last=Chichilnisky |first=Graciela |title=Reflections of Eminent Economists |date=2004 |publisher=Edward Elgar |isbn=1-84376-628-0 |editor-last=Szenberg |editor-first=Michael |editor-link=Michael Szenberg |pages=108–143 |chapter=Sex and the Ivy League |editor-last2=Ramrattan |editor-first2=Lall}} She studied at MIT from 1967 to 1968,{{Cite web |date=2018-03-14 |title=Graciela Chichilnisky |url=https://whoswhoofprofessionalwomen.com/graciela-chichilnisky/ |website=Who’s Who of Professional Women |publisher=Marquis Who’s Who |language=en-US}} then transferred to the University of California, Berkeley.{{Cite news |last=Fogg |first=Piper |date=October 17, 2003 |title=A Lone Woman Takes on Columbia |url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-lone-woman-takes-on-columbia/ |url-access=subscription |work=The Chronicle of Higher Education |page=A10 |volume=50 |issue=8}} In 1970 she received a Master of Arts degree, the following year receiving a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in mathematics under the advisor Jerrold Marsden. In 1976, she received another Ph.D. from Berkeley, this one in economics, under Nobel laureate Gerard Debreu.{{Cite web |title=Graciela Chichilnisky |url=https://econ.columbia.edu/econpeople/graciela-chichilnisky/ |access-date=2024-04-17 |website=Department of Economics |publisher=Columbia University |language=en-US}} Some sources erroneously state that she received a degree from MIT,{{Cite web |last=Hammond |first=Peter |author-link=Peter J. Hammond (economist) |date=Jun 12, 2023 |title=Guest Lecture with Professor Graciela Chichilnisky |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5edhZUiINls |website=Department of Economics |publisher=The University of Warwick |via=YouTube}} but this is incorrect, all of her degrees were awarded by Berkeley. Chichilnisky's daughter Natasha was born in 1987 to Graciela and Geoffrey Heal, a fellow professor at Columbia. Natasha died in 2014 while a graduate student at Yale University.{{Cite web |last=Platoff |first=Emma |date=2014-11-21 |title=Chichilnisky-Heal GRD '18 remembered as "intellectual force" |url=https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/11/21/chichilnisky-heal-graduate-student-remembered-as-an-intellectual-force-dies/ |access-date=2024-06-09 |website=Yale Daily News |language=en}}

Since {{Circa|1991–1992}},Sources vary; her CV states she naturalized in 1991, while Marquis Who's Who lists the year 1992 in their publications:

{{Cite web |title=Graciela Chichilnisky |url=https://econ.columbia.edu/econpeople/graciela-chichilnisky/ |access-date=2024-04-17 |website=Department of Economics |publisher=Columbia University |language=en-US}}
{{Cite book |title=Who's Who in American Education 2006–2007 |date=2005 |publisher=Marquis Who's Who |isbn=0-8379-2708-0 |edition=7th |pages=299 |chapter=Chichilnisky, Graciela}} Chichilnisky has been a naturalized American citizen. In 2017, the Carnegie Corporation of New York recognized her as one of 38 "Great Immigrants", a distinction honoring naturalized citizens for contributions to their field.{{Cite web |last=Ford |first=Celeste |date=June 29, 2017 |title=July Fourth Tribute Honors 38 Distinguished Immigrants |url=https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/great-immigrantsgreat-americans-honoring-38-distinguished-immigrants/ |publisher=Carnegie Corporation of New York}} She has two children, lives in New York City, and speaks English, Spanish, and French.

Career

After a postdoctoral position at Harvard University, Chichilnisky accepted a position as an associate professor of economics at Columbia University in 1977, and received tenure and a promotion to professor in two years. She was named UNESCO Professor of Mathematics and Economics from 1995 to 2008, part of the UNESCO Chairs program.{{Cite web |title=Biography: Graciela Chichilnisky |url=http://p-i-r.org/biogc.htm |access-date=2024-04-17 |publisher=Program on Information and Resources}} She also held a chair in economics at the University of Essex from 1980 to 1981, and has additionally served as a visiting professor at other universities, including at the Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University since 2015.

In 2010, Chichilnisky, along with co-founder Peter Eisenberger and supporter Ben Bronfman, formed Global Thermostat, a company specializing in direct-air capture. She served as the company's CEO, and in 2015, was named CEO of the Year in Sustainability by the business magazine International Alternative Investment Review.{{Cite web |date=April 27, 2015 |title=Graciela Chichilnisky Selected As 2015 CEO of the Year |url=https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150427006074/en/Graciela-Chichilnisky-Selected-As-2015-CEO-of-the-Year |website=Business Wire |language=en |agency=Global Thermostat}} Corporate restructuring in 2022 led her to step down from her role as CEO.{{Cite web |last1=Kaufman |first1=Leslie |last2=Rathi |first2=Akshat |date=2022-01-28 |title=Troubled U.S. Carbon-Sucking Startup Goes Looking for New CEO |url=https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/troubled-u-s-carbon-sucking-startup-goes-looking-for-new-ceo-1.1714969 |website=BNN Bloomberg}} As of 2023, Chichilnisky is serving as CEO of the company GT Climate Innovation.{{Cite web |title=Events: Warwick Economics Guest Lecture with Graciela Chichilnisky |url=https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/newsandevents/events/?calendarItem=8a1785d88798f5bd0187a369036335ef |access-date=2024-06-09 |website=Faculty of Social Sciences |publisher=Warwick University}}

Research

{{Multiple issues |section=yes |collapsed=June 2024|

{{Cleanup section|reason=section uses economics-specific jargon with no specific citations to Chichilnisky's publications or discussion of her research's impact.|date=June 2024}}

}}

Chichilnisky is the author of over 17 books and over 330 scientific research papers. She is best known for designing the carbon market outlined in the Kyoto Protocol, which has been international law since 2005.{{Cite web |date=July 2017 |title=Graciela Chichilnisky |url=https://www.carnegie.org/awards/honoree/graciela-chichilnisky/ |publisher=Carnegie Corporation of New York}} She was also a lead author on the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which won that year's Nobel Peace Prize.{{Cite news |last=Siegle |first=Lucy |author-link=Lucy Siegle |date=2010-11-14 |title=Graciela Chichilnisky's innovation: carbon capturing |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/nov/14/graciela-chichilnisky-carbon-capture-global-thermostat |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB}}

In the theory of international trade, she constructed an example of a "transfer paradox", where a transfer of goods from a donor to a recipient can render the recipient worse off and the donor better off. She constructed examples where export-led growth strategies for developing countries could result in paradoxically poor results, because of increasing returns to scale in the technologies of the developed countries.{{Cn|date=April 2024}}

In welfare economics and voting theory, particularly in the specialty of social choice theory, Chichilnisky introduced a continuous model of collective decisions to which she applied algebraic topology; following her initiatives, continuous social choice has developed as an international subdiscipline. During the 1980s and 1990s some of Chichilnisky's research was done in collaboration with mathematical economist Geoffrey M. Heal, who has been her colleague at Essex and Columbia.{{Cn|date=April 2024}}

A list of Chichilnisky's publications can be found on her CV, which is linked from her profile on the Columbia Economics website. Independent articles discussing and reviewing her work have also been published in peer-reviewed journals.{{Cite journal |last=Lysy |first=Frank J. |date=1985-08-01 |title=Graciela Chichilnisky's model of North-South trade |journal=Journal of Development Economics |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=503–539 |doi=10.1016/0304-3878(85)90071-9}}{{Cite journal |last=Tol |first=Richard S. J. |author-link=Richard Tol |date=2012-07-01 |title=Graciela Chichilnisky (ed): The Economics of Climate Change |journal=Environmental and Resource Economics |language=en |volume=52 |issue=3 |pages=455–456 |doi=10.1007/s10640-012-9557-3|doi-access=free }}

Litigation

In 1994, Chichilnisky sued two other economics professors, accusing them of stealing her ideas. Chichilnisky was countersued, and both lawsuits were later dropped. Although there were high tensions within the field, the subject matter of the controversy was described in news reports as "distinctly small-time stuff, at least according to most experts."{{Cite news |last=Warsh |first=David |author-link=David Warsh |date=May 5, 1996 |title=A bitter battle illuminates an esoteric world |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/441075367 |work=Boston Sunday Globe |pages=41 |via=Newspapers.com |volume=249 |issue=126}} In 1991 and 2000, Chichilnisky sued her employer, Columbia University. The first lawsuit, which settled for $500,000 in 1995, alleged that the university unfairly paid her 30% less than male coworkers.{{Cite web |date=July 2008 |title=Chichilnisky v. Columbia University |url=http://www.aauw.org/act/laf/cases/chichilnisky.cfm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306002330/http://www.aauw.org/act/laf/cases/chichilnisky.cfm |archive-date=2012-03-06 |access-date=2024-04-18 |publisher=AAUW}} She filed a lawsuit again in 2000, alleging that the university continued to display sexism, had retaliated against her for the previous suit, and was attempting to dissolve her endowed chair. Columbia countersued in 2003, but Chichilnisky settled the case in 2008 and received $200,000; the university did not admit any wrongdoing.{{Cite web |last=Goldberg |first=Ross |date=June 30, 2008 |title=Columbia, Prof. Reach Second Gender Dispute Settlement |url=https://www.nysun.com/article/new-york-columbia-and-a-professor-reach-second-gender |website=The New York Sun |language=en}} Columbia University maintains that she has a difficult time working with colleagues and is abrasive in nature, while Chichilnisky holds that these traits would not be pointed out if she were male.{{Cite news |last=Strauss |first=Valerie |date=December 2, 2007 |title=Taking on the Economics of Gender Inequity |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2007/12/03/taking-on-the-economics-of-gender-inequity/7aee3b4e-8654-456f-a4a9-51edc429aa4c/ |newspaper=The Washington Post}}

References

External links

{{Sister project links|auto=yes|d=yes}}{{Library resources box|by=yes|lcheading= Chichilnisky, Graciela}}

{{Official website}}
{{Cite web |title=Graciela Chichilnisky |url=https://econ.columbia.edu/econpeople/graciela-chichilnisky/ |website=Department of Economics |publisher=Columbia University |language=en-US}}
{{Google Scholar ID|id=usqnvhIAAAAJ}}

Category:Climate economists

Category:Trade economists

Category:American development economists

Category:Mathematical economists

Category:Voting theorists

Category:Game theorists

Category:Columbia University faculty

Category:American topologists

Category:American women economists

Category:American women political scientists

Category:American political scientists

Category:UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni