Djavad Salehi-Isfahani received his doctorate in economics from Harvard University in 1977. He is currently a professor of economics at Virginia Tech and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, been visiting faculty at the University of Oxford, the Brookings Institution and Harvard Kennedy School. He has served on the board of trustees of the Economic Research Forum in Cairo and the Middle East Economic Association. and is currently an associate editor of the Middle East Development Journal. He has co-authored two books: "Models of the Oil Market" and "After the Spring: Economic Transitions in the Arab World." His articles have appeared in various economics journals.