Demetrios G. Papademetriou

Demetrios G. Papademetriou was a Distinguished Transatlantic Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, which he co-founded and led as its first President until 2014 and where he remained President Emeritus until his death in January 2022. He served until 2018 as the founding President of MPI Europe, a nonprofit, independent research institute in Brussels that aims to promote a better understanding of migration trends and effects within Europe.

Honoring the Life of Demetrios G. Papademetriou

Friends and colleagues from around the world came together in March 2022 to celebrate Dr. Papademetriou's legacy during a tribute event in Washington, DC. To watch the event video, click on the image below.

 

For more on his remarkable legacy, read the MPI statement and a collection of tributes.
To read the obituary or to leave any memories for his family, click here.

During MPI's 20th anniversary celebration in 2021, its internship program was renamed the Demetrios G. Papademetriou Young Scholars Program in honor of the career-long dedication that he exhibited in training, mentoring, and helping the careers of the next generation of migration thinkers around the world.

To support the Young Scholars program, click here.

He was the convener of the Transatlantic Council on Migration, which is composed of senior public figures, business leaders, and public intellectuals from Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia. He also convened the Regional Migration Study Group in 2011–15, an initiative that has proposed and is promoting multi-stakeholder support for new regional and collaborative approaches to migration, competitiveness, and human-capital development for the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America.

Dr. Papademetriou co-founded Metropolis: An International Forum for Research and Policy on Migration and Cities (which he led as International Chair for the initiative’s first five years and where he continued to serve as International Chair Emeritus); and served as Chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Migration (2009-11); Founding Chair of the Advisory Board of the Open Society Foundations' International Migration Initiative (2010-15); Chair of the Migration Group of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); Director for Immigration Policy and Research at the U.S. Department of Labor and Chair of the Secretary of Labor's Immigration Policy Task Force; and Executive Editor of the International Migration Review.

He published more than 275 books, articles, monographs, and research reports on a wide array of migration topics, lectured widely on all aspects of immigration and immigrant integration policy, and advised foundations and other grant-making organizations, civil-society groups, and senior government and political party officials, in dozens of countries (including numerous European Union Member States while they hold the rotating EU presidency).

Dr. Papademetriou held a PhD in comparative public policy and international relations (1976) from the University of Maryland and taught at the universities of Maryland, Duke, American, and New School for Social Research.