Stefanos Gandolfo

Stefanos Gandolfo has been the director of the Athens Columbia Global Center since June 2024. Previously he was employed at the Office of the Prime Minister of Greece where he worked as a special advisor to the Minister of State responsible for the government’s policy on disabilities. In that role, he led the drafting of the National Strategy for the Rights of People with Disabilities, 2024-2030, and coordinated the streamlining of key reforms including the national accessibility sign and data collection on disability. Prior to that, he spent more than two years in the Ministry of Education in Greece where as chief of policy he spearheaded efforts to forge global partnerships with universities from around the world and was instrumental in implementing key reforms in primary and secondary education.

Gandolfo has lectured on Chinese history, culture and international relations to undergraduate students at the University of Oxford and the University of Piraeus. He has published broadly on Chinese philosophy and culture and has extensive experience as a translator of contemporary Chinese thinkers. He is currently co-editor of a new series on Chinese culture published by Crete University Press, the leading university press in Greece.

Gandolfo obtained a BA (cum laude) in Economics and Philosophy at Yale University. He pursued his MA at Peking University in Chinese Philosophy (taught in Chinese) where he received multiple awards. He completed his PhD at the University of Oxford where his dissertation on the organisation of knowledge in pre-modern China received an honourable distinction by the Royal Asiatic Society.

In addition to Greek and English, he speaks Italian, Chinese, French, Spanish, and Japanese (high reading level) and has excellent knowledge of ancient Chinese