London-based consulting firm, and in the 1980s a firm providing systems for ... to the analysis of the security of airli
Geoffrey Heal Geoffrey Heal is Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility and Professor of Economics and Finance at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business, and Professor of Public and International Affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs. He has served as Vice Dean of the Business School and managed the Executive MBA Program. Heal studied Physics and Economics at Cambridge, where he obtained a First Class Honors degree and a Doctorate, and then taught at Cambridge, Stanford, Yale and Princeton, and held a Fulbright Professorship at the University of Siena. Dr. Heal has acted as Managing Editor of the Review of Economic Studies and has acted on the Editorial Boards of many other journals. In the 1970s he founded a London-based consulting firm, and in the 1980s a firm providing systems for telecommunications and data processing to the international securities business. He is a member of the Pew Oceans Commission ( www.pewoceans.org ), a Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists (www.ucsusa.org), a Director of the Beijer Institute of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (www.kva.se ), Chair of the National Academy/National Research Council’s Committee on the Valuation of Ecosystem Services, a member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Dr. Heal has advised the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Mineworkers of America, and used to work as Advisor to the Secretary-General of OPEC. Dr. Heal’s research fields include the management of risks by financial markets, and especially the securitization of catastrophic risks and analysis of the systemic risks associated with the growth of derivative markets. Dr. Heal has worked more generally on the application of mathematical modeling techniques in economic theory. As an extension of this research he has been involved in the design of new financial instruments and has acted as an advisor to financial institutions and other corporations. Another major research interest is the interaction between society and its natural resource base. Dr. Heal has been working to formalize and make operational the concept of sustainability and to develop an interdisciplinary group of social and biological scientists committed to research on the interface between the biological and social sciences. A part of this agenda focuses on the extent to which market mechanisms can be instrumental in environmental conservation, the topic of his recent book “Nature and the Marketplace.”
In the Fall of 2001, in response to the events of 9/11/01, Dr. Heal began a research program on the economic aspects of security in highly interdependent systems. This program applies concepts from risk management and game theory to the analysis of the security of airlines, power grids, computer networks and other complex linked systems. Recent books include "Valuing the Future," "Nature and the Marketplace," "Topological Social Choice," "Sustainability: Dynamics and Uncertainty," and "Environmental Markets." He has published eight other books and over 150 articles. Dr. Heal is married, has three daughters, and lives with his wife Ann Marie in Soho. His interests include photography, art, baroque music and birdwatching.
