May 02 2012
Prof. Dr. Eric S. Maskin – Nobel laureate speaker
Nobel Laureate, Professor School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University and Nobel laureate speaker
Eric S. Maskin is probably best known for his work on the theory of mechanism design for which he shared the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. He has made contributions to many other areas of economics as well, including the theory of income inequality, the study of intellectual property rights and political economy. He is the Albert O. Hirschman Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, and a visiting lecturer with the rank of Professor at Princeton University.
“Nobel laureate recognized for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory”
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Mohamed ElBaradei is the former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an intergovernmental organisation within the United Nations system, Nobel Peace Prize Joint Winner (with the IAEA) in 2005 and a keynote speaker. He has also served in various roles within the United Nations in New York, including Director of its Legal Division, head of the Division of External Relations, and Assistant Director General for External Relations.
Sir James Mirrlees is a Scottish economist who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1996 for his fundamental contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information. He was knighted for contributions to economic science in 1997. He is a member of Scotland’s Council of Economic Advisers. He also led the The Mirrlees Review, a review of the UK tax system by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Lech Walesa is probably best known as the leader of the Solidarity movement which led Poland out of Communism and played a significant role in the changing political landscape of Eastern Europe towards the end of the 20th century. In 1990, he was elected President of the Republic of Poland, a position he held for five years. He has been granted many honorary degrees from universities, including Harvard University and the University of Paris. Other honours include the Medal of Freedom (Philadelphia, U.S.A.); the Award of Free World (Norway); and the European Award of Human Rights.
Dr. Mario Molina was a co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in elucidating the threat to the Earth’s ozone layer of chlorofluorocarbon gases (or CFCs), becoming the first Mexican-born citizen to ever receive a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he is one of the world’s leading authorities on pollution and the effects of chemical pollution on the environment.
Jody Williams was instrumental in creating a sweeping international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines. She received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the campaign she worked for, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). One broader aspect of her work was her pioneering use of People Power. She continues to serve the ICBL as a campaign ambassador and editor of the organization’s landmine report, and, since 2003, has held a faculty position of distinguished professor of social work and global justice at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. In 2006, she was one of the founders of The Nobel Women’s Initiative.
Peter Diamond was awarded the Nobel for his seminal work on search theory, the theory of the frictions and incentives involved in the process of matching. He is an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known for his analysis of U.S. Social Security policy and his work as an advisor to the Advisory Council on Social Security in the late 1980s and 1990s. It was announced at the end of 2010 that President Barack Obama was to renominate Peter to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
Prof. Christopher Pissarides was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2010, for his contributions to the theory of search frictions and macroeconomics. The first Nobel winner with Cypriot citizenship, he is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and holder of the Norman Sosnow Chair in Economics. He has served on the European Employment Task Force and has been a consultant on employment policy and other labour issues for the World Bank, the European Commission, the Bank of England and the OECD. 
John Sulston is currently Chair of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation (iSEI) at the University of Manchester. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 2002 (jointly with Sydney Brenner and Bob Horvitz), for the work they had done in understanding the development of the nematode (worm) Caenorhabditis elegans. He was listed among the UK’s 100 most powerful people by the Observer newspaper and received his knighthood for services to genome research in the 2001 New Year’s Honours.
Finn Kydland is the Henley Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Economics. The prize, which he shares with Edward C. Prescott, is “for their contribution to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles”. His methods have been widely adopted in modern macroeconomics.
