Title: Professor
Company: University of Minnesota
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Dr. Ragui A. Assaad, professor at the University of Minnesota, has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Educators for dedication, achievements, and leadership in academia and research.
With over four decades of experience to his credit, Dr. Assaad has established a successful career in academia, specializing in international development policy, the Middle East and North Africa regions, the economics of international development, and applied development policy analysis. He currently excels as a professor at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, a role he has held since 1990. He is also a Co-Founder and Research Fellow with the Economic Research Forum, where he has continued to serve since 1984. He was the regional director of the Population Council from 2005 to 2008 and director of the International Fellows Program.
In his current roles, Dr. Assaad conducts research on youth and labor markets, focusing on improving job opportunities for young people, addressing barriers faced by women in the workforce, and aligning educational programs with labor market demands. He evaluates training programs aimed at helping youth secure better jobs, organizes large-scale data collection through surveys to track labor market trajectories, and teaches graduate students. Additionally, he directs the International Fellows Program, which brings career professionals from around the world to the U.S. for professional development. He also engages in international project and research meetings, contributes to data infrastructure at the Economic Research Forum, and has authored numerous articles published in professional journals.
Laying a solid educational foundation, Dr. Assaad completed coursework at the American University in Cairo. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in physics from Stanford University, a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from Stanford University in 1981, and a PhD in city and regional planning from Cornell University in 1991. He also earned a certification in social, behavioral, and humanist research investigators and key personnel from the CITI Program in 2024. He is a supporter of the Association for the Protection of the Environment and Care with Love. In addition, he is a member of the Population Association of America, the Middle East Studies Association, the board of the Economic Research Forum, the Center for The Study of Labor in Germany, the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, the board of the Arab Council of Social Sciences in Lebanon, and the board of The Global Development Network.
Reflecting on his journey, Dr. Assaad came to the U.S. at 18 to pursue his undergraduate studies, which led to a career in academia and research. He is passionate about teaching and mentoring the next generation, helping young people develop their research skills and follow in his footsteps. He takes great pride in organizing large-scale data-collection efforts, including the ERF Labor Market Panel Survey, which he initiated in Egypt in 1998. This ambitious longitudinal survey, which conducted its fifth wave in 2023, has also been replicated in Jordan, Tunisia, and Sudan. These projects are particularly challenging due to the need to track participants over time, but the data collected is now publicly available and has served as the foundation for thousands of research papers, reports, and policies.
In the coming years, Dr. Assaad plans to retire from teaching but continue his research. He intends to publish a book on the status of labor markets in the Middle East and explore a new area called randomized controlled trials in the social sciences, applying methods similar to those used in drug trials. He says he will take a sabbatical in the Middle East for a year and then return to teaching for a few more years before retiring from academia. However, he has no intention of retiring from research.
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