Ibrahim Awad is currently a professor of practice of global affairs and director, of the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, at The American University in Cairo (AUC). He holds a BA degree in political science from Cairo University and a PhD degree in political science from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva, Switzerland. He has worked for the League of Arab States, the United Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO), holding positions of Secretary of the Commission, UN-ESCWA, director, of ILO Sub-regional Office for North Africa and director, the ILO International Migration Programme.

Awad currently is chair of the Labor Migration Working Group of the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD), hosted by the World Bank, chair of the Steering Committee of the Euro-Mediterranean Research Network on International Migration (EuroMedMig), member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Working Group on Reimagining Global Economic Governance, member of the Advisory Board of the Center on Forced Displacement, Boston University, member of the Advisory Board, Gulf Labour Markets, Migration and Population (GLMM) Programme, and Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He also serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals.