Amartya Kumar Sen is an eminent economist and philosopher. He is renowned for his work on the underlying mechanisms of poverty and famine, human development theory, welfare economics, gender inequality and political liberalism. He is considered a ground-breaker among late twentieth-century economists for challenging the notion of self-interest as the prime motivating factor of human activity. His work has helped re-prioritize a significant sector of economists and development workers, and shaped policies of the United Nations. In 1998, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contribution to welfare economics.
Following studies at Presidency College, Kolkata and the University of Cambridge, he has held academic appointments at the University of Calcutta, London School of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nuffield and All Souls Colleges at the University of Oxford. He is currently the Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is also a senior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge where he previously served as Master from 1998 to 2004.
Amartya Sen’s books have been translated into more than thirty languages. Among the many awards he has received are the Order of Companion of Honour in the United Kingdom (2000) and the Eisenbower Medal for Leadership and Service in the United States (2000). He is a trustee of Economists for Peace and Security, and was recently listed among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine.