Speaker Bio: Jeffrey Sachs

  Dr. Jeffrey Sachs is widely considered to be the leading international economic advisor of his generation. For more than 20 years, he has been in the forefront of the challenges of economic development, poverty alleviation and enlightened globalization. Sachs is also one of the leading voices for combining economic development with environmental sustainability.

Sachs is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and has served as an adviser to the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Development Program, among other international agencies. During 2000-2001, he was Chairman of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health of the World Health Organization, and from September 1999 through March 2000 he served as a member of the International Financial Institutions Advisory Commission established by the U.S. Congress.

He was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2004 and 2005, and the World Affairs Council of America identified him as one of the 500 most influential people in the United States in the field of foreign policy. Sachs is the recipient of many awards and honors, including the 2007 Padma Bhushan, a high civilian honor bestowed by the Indian Government.

  About John Ydstie
NPR correspondent and host John Ydstie ’74 will be interviewing Sachs during the live videoconference. He works as a roving national correspondent for NPR, covering such stories as Hurricane Katrina and the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Ydstie also frequently appears as a guest host on the NPR news programs Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, and Talk of the Nation.

Ydstie has been with NPR since 1979. He has served as NPR’s bureau chief in London and, in August 1990, he traveled to Saudi Arabia for NPR as a member of the Pentagon press pool sent to cover the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. During the early stages of the crisis, Ydstie was the only American radio reporter in the country.

During his tenure with NPR, Ydstie has won numerous awards. He was a member of the NPR team that received the George Foster Peabody for its coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Ydstie’s reporting from Saudi Arabia helped NPR win the Alfred I duPont-Columbia University Award in 1991 for coverage of the Gulf War.