Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he holds the rank of University Professor, the university’s highest academic rank. Sachs held the position of Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University from 2002 to 2016. He is President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, and an SDG Advocate for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. From 2001-18, Sachs served as Special Advisor to UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan (2001-7), Ban Ki-moon (2008-16), and António Guterres (2017-18).

Sachs has authored and edited numerous books, including three New York Times bestsellers: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011). Other books include To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace (2013), The Age of Sustainable Development (2015), Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair & Sustainable (2017), A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (2018), and most recently, The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions (2020).

Sachs was the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He was twice named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders and has received 35 honorary degrees. The New York Times called Sachs “probably the most important economist in the world,” and Time magazine called Sachs “the world’s best-known economist.” A survey by The Economist ranked Sachs as among the three most influential living economists.

Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, most recently as the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard.

He has served as Secretary General of Population and Social Cohesion of the Greek Ministry of Interior (August 2012 and May 2015) and Secretary for Intercultural Education and Greek Studies Abroad of the Greek Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs (2007-2009).

He has served in positions of high management responsibility for foreign policy issues on minorities, transparency and telecommunications.

He was awarded in 1992 by the Academy of Athens for his work on the delimitation of the continental shelf.

During his military service, he was honored with Praise by the 4th Corps in Thrace for services to the minority of Thrace and with Honorable Mention by the Army General Staff for his contribution to the creation of the Pomak-Greek dictionary.

He has published books on Greek-Turkish relations, the Cyprus issue, the Prespa Agreement.

On July 7, 2019 he was elected as a Member of the Hellenic Parliament.

He was sworn in as Deputy Minister of Education and Religions in charge of higher education issues on January 5, 2021.
He has served as a member of the Standing Parliamentary Committee on National Defense and Foreign Affairs, the Special Standing Committee on European Affairs, as well as the Greek Delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA).

He is married to Irini Stamatoudi and they have three children.

She holds a BSc/(Hons) in Environmental Science, MSc in Urban Water and Environmental Management and PhD on sustainable urban drainage systems and river management options, obtained from the Abertay University, U.K., under funding received by the Environment Agency for England & Wales, in collaboration with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), and by HR Wallingford Consultants. She has a wide research experience; she has worked for several years as a researcher in collaboration with Universities, Research Institutions and Authorities.

Her main research interests include: integrated water management and innovation, sustainable development, sustainable stormwater management, climate change, conservation of biodiversity, ecosystem restoration, public awareness – stakeholder engagement methods and public education, green urban planning with emphasis on amenity and biodiversity and on the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Since September 2020 she participates as a mentor for sustainability issues in the mentorship program of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). In February 2021, she was appointed by AASHE to serve as a member of the AASHE Advisory Council for her constant commitment and support to promoting sustainability best practices and culture on and off campus. The Advisory Council is an advisory body whose input often has a significant impact on staff and board decisions of AASHE. In February 2020 became a member of the Corporate Responsibility Committee of the American – Hellenic Chamber of Commerce.

In 2015 she was certified as a GRI G4 reporter and in July 2016 received her certification as a Sustainability (CSR) Practitioner approved by the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA). Also, she has received certifications in: Carbon Reduction Strategy, Sustainability Reporting, Social Impact Assessment & SROI.  In August 1019, she has been certified as a Sustainability Management professional and on High Impact Leadership from the Institute for Sustainability Leadership, University of Cambridge.

Under her leadership, in 2020, ACG was awarded with the Gold STARS rating by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. Claudia has been working at ACG since 2005 and was initially head of Alumni Relations & College Events. Before joining ACG, Claudia worked in leading private companies as a marketing and communications executive. She also worked for the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of European Affairs, for the period 1988-1992.

Claudia holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from DEREE-The American College of Greece and a Master’s degree in International Relations & Communication from Boston University, US.

Prof. Koundouri is University Professor (the university’s highest academic rank) at the School of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business, an elected fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science (World Academy of Art & Science) and the President-elect of the European Association of Environmental and Natural Resource Economists for the period 2019-2025 (EAERE – with more than 1200 scientific member institutions, from more than 75 different countries).

Prof. Koundouri is the Founder and Scientific Director of the Research Laboratory on Socio-Economic and Environmental Sustainability (ReSEES) at the Athens University of Economics and Business, focusing on interdisciplinary research on socio-economic and environmental systems. She is also Affiliated Professor at the ATHENA Research and Innovation Center, where she founded and scientifically directs the Sustainable Development Unit and the EIT Climate-KIC Hub Greece of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, the latter focusing on accelerating technological and social innovations for use in the transition to a climate neutral economy.

Prof. Koundouri is also the co-Chair of United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN) – Europe. The leadership of UN SDSN – Europe is constituted from existing National SDSN European networks and its mission is to serve as a science driven interface with European Commission policymaking. Prof. Koundouri is also the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Centre for Research on the Environment and the Economy (ICRE8) and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Forest Institute.

Prof. Koundouri is one of the Commissioners of the prestigious Lancet Commission on COVID-19 for which she co-chairs the “Jobs-based Green Recovery” Task Force. She leads the UN SDSN Senior Working Group on “Transformation Pathways for the implementation of EGD and the SDGs”, co-leads the UN SDSN Sustainable Shipping and Ports Initiative, and the UN SDSN 4-seas (Mediterranean, Black, Caspian and Aral Seas) Blue Growth Initiative. She is a member of the CEPR (Center for Economic Policy Research) Network (RPN) on Climate Change, member of the Priministerial Committee for the Recovery and 10-year Development Plan of Greece, the National Climate Change Committee of Greece, as well as chair or member of numerous European and International Scientific, Research and Policy Boards and Committees.

Prof. Koundouri acts as a scientific advisor to the European Commission, World Bank, European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, OECD, UN, NATO, WHO, World Water Council and various other multilateral institutions, as well as numerous national and international foundations and organizations. She also advises national governments across the world. Prof. Koundouri is an editorial board member of more than 20 prestigious scientific journals.

Since 1997, she has coordinated more than 100 interdisciplinary research projects, in all five continents, focused on combinations of Sustainable Development, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, Behavioural Economics and Econometrics, Economics of Wellbeing and Happiness, Natural Resource-Food-Energy Nexus, Smart Water Systems, Ecosystem Services Valuation, Blue Growth, Circular Economy, Systems Innovation, Innovation Acceleration and Commercialization, and has attracted significant competitive research funding. Prof. Koundouri and her large interdisciplinary team (more than 200 researchers) have produced research and policy results that have contributed to accelerating research and innovation for the enablement of Sustainable Development and has contributed to shaping European and National policies.

Over the last two decades, Professor Koundouri has given keynote and public lecturers, at high level forums all over the world, and received various prizes for academic excellence, including best paper awards, highest policy impact paper award, European Research project award, etc. as well as the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grant (2020-2027), which focuses on design of the next generation of urban water systems, via the combination of water science, systems and control theory, economics, decision-science and machine learning. This is the biggest research project in the world at the moment working on urban water systems.

Prof. Koundouri was born and raised in Cyprus. During the period 1991-2006, she studied and held academic positions in the UK. She holds a PhD and MPhil in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Cambridge. For her studies she received a full scholarship from the University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust. She then held academic positions at the University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Reading, London School of Economics. Since 2006 she lives in Greece (Athens) with her husband, Prof. Nikitas Pittis, and their three daughters: Chrysilia, Billie and Athena.

Dr. Papandreou has 30 years of academic experience in various Universities, including University College London and Harvard. His research and published work are mostly in the fields of environmental economics, institutional economics, political economy and welfare economics. Among his publications are “Externality and Institutions” (1998) Oxford University Press. He is the Director of the MSc in Philosophy and Management at National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He is the Director of the Political Economy of Sustainable Development Lab (PESD) at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The Lab has also established the Athens Behavioral and Experimental Economics and Social Sciences Unit (ABEESS) to undertake, inter alia, experimental research relating to sustainable development. He is Co-chair of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network Greece (SDSN Greece).