Graciela Chichilnisky was born March 27, 1946^[4] in Buenos Aires, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants.^[3] Her father was a professor of neurology at the University of Buenos Aires and a friend of Juan Perón. Chichilnisky received high school education at the Instituto National de Lenguas Vivas, additionally taking science classes at the local university. After a coup, the military closed the University of Buenos Aires, and professor Warren Ambrose fled to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), taking six students—including Chichilnisky—with him. Chichilnisky's son E.J. Chichilnisky was born while Graciela was in high school, and she was raising him as a single mother at the time of her move to MIT.^[1][3]

Chichilnisky, who had no formal undergraduate education, was accepted to MIT, and matriculated into the doctoral program in mathematics with support from a Ford Foundation scholarship.^[1] While in the doctoral program, she was advised by Norman Levinson.^[5] She studied at MIT from 1967 to 1968,^[6] then transferred to the University of California, Berkeley.^[7] In 1970 she received a Master of Arts degree, the following year receiving a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in mathematics under the advisor Jerrold Marsden. In 1976, she received another Ph.D. from Berkeley, this one in economics, under Nobel laureate Gerard Debreu.^[8] Some sources erroneously state that she received a degree from MIT,^[9] but this is incorrect, all of her degrees were awarded by Berkeley.

Since c. 1991–1992,^[10] Chichilnisky has been a naturalized American citizen. In 2017, the Carnegie Corporation of New York recognized her as one of 38 "Great Immigrants", a distinction honoring naturalized citizens for contributions to their field.^[11] She has two children, lives in New York City, and speaks English, Spanish, and French.^[8]

After a postdoctoral position at Harvard University, Chichilnisky accepted a position as an associate professor of economics at Columbia University in 1977, and received tenure and a promotion to professor in two years.^[7] She was named UNESCO Professor of Mathematics and Economics from 1995 to 2008,^[8] part of the UNESCO Chairs program.^[12] She also held a chair in economics at the University of Essex from 1980 to 1981, and has additionally served as a visiting professor at other universities, including at the Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University since 2015.^[8]

In 2010, Chichilnisky, along with co-founder Peter Eisenberger and supporter Ben Bronfman, formed Global Thermostat, a company specializing in direct-air capture.^[3] She served as the company's CEO, and in 2015, was named CEO of the Year in Sustainability by the business magazine International Alternative Investment Review.^[13] Corporate restructuring in 2022 led her to step down from her role as CEO.^[14]

Chichilnisky is the author of over 17 books and over 330 scientific research papers. She is best known for designing the carbon market outlined in the Kyoto Protocol, which has been international law since 2005.^[15] She was a lead author on the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which won that year's Nobel Peace Prize.^[16]

In the theory of international trade, she constructed an example of a "transfer paradox", where a transfer of goods from a donor to a recipient can render the recipient worse off and the donor better off. She constructed examples where export-led growth strategies for developing countries could result in paradoxically poor results, because of increasing returns to scale in the technologies of the developed countries.^{[citation needed]}

In welfare economics and voting theory, particularly in the specialty of social choice theory, Chichilnisky introduced a continuous model of collective decisions to which she applied algebraic topology; following her initiatives, continuous social choice has developed as an international subdiscipline. During the 1980s and 1990s some of Chichilnisky's research was done in collaboration with mathematical economist Geoffrey M. Heal, who has been her colleague at Essex and Columbia.^{[citation needed]}

A list of Chichilnisky's publications can be found on her CV, which is linked from her profile on the Columbia Economics website.^[8] Independent articles discussing and reviewing her work have also been published in peer-reviewed journals.^[17][18]

In 1994 Chichilnisky sued two other economics professors, accusing them of stealing her ideas. Chichilnisky was countersued and dropped her lawsuit. The subject matter of the controversy was described in contemporaneous news reports as "distinctly small-time stuff, at least according to most experts."^[19] In 1991 and 2000 as well, Chichilnisky sued her employer—Columbia University—alleging sexism, pay inequality, and attempts by the university to dissolve her endowed chair. The latter suit was settled in 2008 under undisclosed terms;^[20] The New York Sun reported that Chichilnisky received $200,000. According to Columbia's spokesperson, "Chichilnisky signed a statement that her salary was not discriminatory".^[21] The university argues that she has a difficult time working with colleagues, and is abrasive in nature, while she holds that these traits would not be pointed out if she were male.^[22]

• Official website  
• "Graciela Chichilnisky". Department of Economics. Columbia University.
• Graciela Chichilnisky publications indexed by Google Scholar