Born in Cairo Egypt on January 1 1963, he grew up in Egypt where he attended different elementary schools in Heliopolis and Zamalek. In 1979, he earned his General high school diploma. In February 1983, he graduated from The American University in Cairo where he earned a B.A. in Economics with a minor in Computer Science.That was followed in 1985 by an M.A. in Economics. It was around this time that came his move to the United States where he first earned an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford University in 1985 followed by a Ph.D in Economics in 1988 from Northwestern University. Currently, he is Chaired Professor of Islamic Economics, Finance, and Management, and Professor of Economics and Statistics at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He has also worked at the International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC as an Economist in the Middle Eastern Department. In 1991, Mahmoud el-Gamal married Ghada Youssef Kamal. He is the proud father of two sons: Ahmad El-Gamal, born September 7, 1993 and Mustafa El-Gamal, born August 20, 1998. Although a creative poet, el-Gamal says: " I hate novels, except if they have a lot of moral philosophy hidden in them." He is nevertheless an avid reader of non-fiction. He reads books in epistemology and philosophy of science. He particularly enjoys books on the history of religion and comparative religion (especially ones that are more archeologically oriented). El-Gamal has his own website where you can savour more of his poetry at : http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~elgamal Speaking of his poetry he says:" I used to write very frequently until I got my Ph.D. I then discovered that the mental energy used to write poetry is the same one used to write research papers. This realization reduced my productivity in both." We sincerely hope that this is only a transitory stage he is passing through.
