Fr. Gaël Giraud is an alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure (Ulm) and ENSAE. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at the École Polytechnique (Paris). He served two years in Chad as a teacher, where he also founded a center for street children (still running today). He is a senior researcher at the CNRS in economics, has published about 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals, written 4 books, and supervised around 20 Ph.D. students. From 1999-2004, he worked as a quantitative engineer and scientific advisor for investment banks (CPR, Calyon, Jean-Michel Lasry’s team). In 2004 he entered the Society of Jesus. In 2009, he was nominated as the best young French economist (Le Monde). In 2013 he was ordained as a priest. In 2015, he founded and directed the Energy and Prosperity Chair (ENS, X, ENSAE) and was appointed Chief Economist and Executive Director of the French Development Agency (AFD). Since 2017, he has been a permanent fellow at the Nantes Institute for Advanced Studies. Since 2018, he has been an Extraordinary Professor at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). From 2020-2023, he was the director of the EJP. Since 2020, he has been a professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy.
