Louise O. Fresco
Following a long international career at the UN, in 2006 Louise O. Fresco (b. 1952) became a professor at the University of Amsterdam, where she is a specialist on the foundations of sustainable development in an international context. She is also a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and of three foreign Academies, and she holds visiting professorships at several international universities (including Stanford and Palo Alto) and numerous positions on national and international advisory and supervisory boards. As a leading thinker, she was honoured with an invitation to speak at the annual TED Conference in 2009.
Despite her busy schedule, she regularly publishes collections of essays and novels. Her novels, De kosmopolieten (The Cosmopolitans, 2003) and De tuin van de sultan in Rome (The Garden of the Sultan in Rome, 2006), were well received.