Barry R. Chiswick is Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics at George Washington University (since January 2011). Previously he was UIC Distinguished Professor (2002-2010), Research Professor (1978-2010), and Head (1987-2008) of the Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He was also founding Director of the UIC Center for Economic Education (2000-2010). In addition, he was Program Director for Migration Studies at IZA - Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn (2004-2011).

Professor Chiswick received his Ph.D. with Distinction in Economics from Columbia University (1967) and has held permanent and visiting appointments at UCLA, Columbia University, CUNY, Stanford University, Princeton University, Hebrew University (Jerusalem), Tel Aviv University, University of Haifa, and the University of Chicago. From 1973 to 1977 he was Senior Staff Economist at the President's Council of Economic Advisers. He is a former chairman of the American Statistical Association Census Advisory Committee, and Past President of the European Society for Population Economics, the Midwest Economics Association and the Illinois Economics Association, and a consultant to numerous U.S. government agencies, as well as to the World Bank and other international organizations. He is currently Associate Editor of the Journal of Population Economics and Research in Economics of the Household, and on the editorial boards of six additional academic journals.

Professor Chiswick has an international reputation for his research in Labor Economics, Human Resources, the Economics of Immigration, the Economics of Minorities, the Economics of Religion, and Income Distribution. He is recognized as having done the seminal research on the Economics of Immigration, and continues to be the leader in the field. He has published 18 books and monographs andover 170 scholarly journal articles and chapters in books, in addition to other publications. His recent book is The Economics of Language (with Paul W. Miller), Routledge, 2007. His research is cited frequently in textbooks and in the academic literature. In addition to numerous seminar and conference presentations in the United States, Professor Chiswick has lectured in 22 other countries across the globe.

Professor Chiswick has received numerous awards for his research. Most recently, he was the recipient of the IZA Prize in Labor Economics (August 2011) for his research on international migration. Two years earlier he was awarded a PhD (Honorary) from Lund University, Sweden (May 2009). Other honors included an appointment as Distinguished Professor at UIC (2002), a Fulbright Research Fellowship (1992), the Senior University Scholar Award from the University of Illinois (1987), the UIC College of Business Administration Alumni Award for Distinguished Research (first recipient), the Carleton C. Qualey Article Award from the Immigration History Society (first recipient), the Milken Institute Award for Distinguished Economic Research (2001), the Marshall Sklare Award from the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (2007), and the 3M Economic Education Excellence Award from the Illinois Council on Economic Education (2007). He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Brooklyn College (1999) for his research on immigrants and minorities. He also delivered the Julian Simon Lecture (2007) at IZA – Institute for the Study of Labor (Bonn).

Professor Chiswick is frequently interviewed by the print and electronic media on a range of issues, especially labor markets, immigration and minorities. He has published policy analyses in newspapers and magazines, has testified before Congress on pending legislation, and given public lectures to community groups on these and related issues. His policy recommendations regarding the reform of immigration law have influenced the public debate.