Since 2002, Dr. Gerardo della Paolera has been the President of and a Professor of Economics at The American University of Paris (AUP). This private, non-profit higher education institution aims to educate generations of intellectually-minded world citizens and to promote scholarship in the arts and sciences in an international, multicultural, and plural environment. As President, Dr. della Paolera strives to develop graduate programs, increase faculty and research resources, and bring financial sustainability to the university, and in doing so, he hopes to transform AUP from a college offering a solid liberal arts program into a highly-reputed university in the arts, humanities, and sciences.

Before joining AUP, Dr. della Paolera was the Founding President and Rector of Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (UTDT) in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 1990 to 2001. During his eleven-year tenure at UTDT, he developed a strategy to repatriate over 60 research professors from the world’s most distinguished universities, signed academic exchange and cooperation agreements with 35 universities in 14 countries, and raised a total of $14 million from grant-giving trusts, corporations, and individuals, thereby transforming the prestigious but small Instituto Torcuato Di Tella into one of Latin America’s leading universities (www.utdt.edu). In addition to utilizing traditional funding techniques, he engineered the first Debt for Research Swap ever structured in Argentina with the creation of the CIF Center for Research in Finance at UTDT, a program which yielded $2.5 million for the University.

In addition to his extensive experience in educational administration, Dr. della Paolera is also a world-renowned expert on Latin-American economic history. He was a Visiting Professor at Doshisha University in Japan (2002) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (2002) and served as a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University (1998 and 1999), Northwestern University (1997), International Monetary Fund (1997), Instituto Torcuato Di Tella (1990-91), and Centro de Estudios Macroeconómicos (1990). He has given seminars in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, China, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the United States and has participated in over 40 conferences worldwide on topics including globalization, local and global culture, education, economic development, and institutions.

Dr. della Paolera has published more than a dozen papers in peer-reviewed journals, and he is the winner of the Arthur Cole Prize for the best article published in the Journal of Economic History in 2000: “Economic Recovery from the Argentine Great Depression: Institutions, Expectations, and the Change of the Macroeconomic Regime.” He recently co-edited and co-authored two books with Alan M. Taylor: A New Economic History of Argentina (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and Straining at the Anchor: in Search of Monetary Stability, Argentina and the Gold Standard, 1880-1935 (University of Chicago Press, 2001).

Along with his research, teaching, and managerial background in academia, Dr. della Paolera has extensive experience in the finance and consulting industries. He acted as Chief International Economist of the Banco Río de la Plata S.A. – New York Branch (1988-89), working at length on projects involving sovereign debt for equity swaps. He was one of the framers of the Argentine Private Development Fund (APDT), which channeled equity into privatized argentine state-owned companies working with stakeholders such as the IFC-World Bank. Dr. della Paolera was also a consultant for the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) and helped execute Bolivia’s Macroeconomic Stabilization plan from 1990 to 1995, traveling frequently to La Paz and Cochabamba to work with the UDAPE and UDAPSO units. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Fundación Pent in Buenos Aires (2001-2006) and has been a member of the Board of Advisors of the Graduate School of Business at Universidad de San Andrés in Argentina since 2003.

Dr. della Paolera’s service on not-for-profit boards includes the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris, France (2002-present), the Fundación Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (1991-2001), the Fulbright Commission (1999-2002), and the Fundación Pro Vivienda Social in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2000-2005). He served as Vice-Chairman of the University of Chicago Club in Argentina from 1992 until 2000. He is also an active member of the Tennis Club Argentino.

During his time in Argentina, Dr. della Paolera contributed op-ed articles to and was regularly interviewed by major Argentine newspapers such as Clarín, El Cronista, La Nación and Página 12.

He holds an A.M. in Economics (1985) and a PhD in Economics (1988) from the University of Chicago, having studied under scholars such as Sherwin Rosen, Larry Sjaastad, and Nobel Laureates Robert W. Fogel and Gary Becker.

Gerardo della Paolera, 49, is a French and Argentine citizen born of a Franco-Argentine father and a Croatian mother. He is married to Verónica Rosana Pipp and has three children: Marina (20 years old), Carola (18), and Martín (13).