Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd professor of sociology at Columbia University and a member of its Committee on Global Thought which she chaired from 2009 to 2015. She is a student of cities, immigration, and states in the world economy, with inequality, gendering, and digitization is the three key variables running through her work.

Born in the Netherlands, she grew up in Argentina and Italy, studied in France, was raised in five languages, and began her professional life in the United States. She is the author of eight books and the editor or co-editor of four books. Her books have been translated into over twenty languages.

Saskia has received multiple awards and honors, among them thirteen doctor honoris causa and over 25 named lectures. She has been named one of the hundred women in science, won the 2013 Principe de Asturias Prize in the Social Sciences, and was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Academy of the Sciences of the Netherlands in 2020. She has also been made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French government and was most recently awarded the International Edgar de Picciotto Prize.