Francisco J. Monaldi, Ph.D., is the fellow in Latin American energy policy and the director of the Latin America Energy Program at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

He is also a fellow at the Center for the United States and Mexico, a lecturer in energy management at the Jones Graduate of School of Business, and a lecturer in energy economics at Rice University. He is a member of the International Faculty at IESA School of Management in Venezuela and Panama, where he was a professor and the founding director of the Center for Energy and the Environment. He is a nonresident fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

He is a member of the International Advisory Council of Global Americans, the Venezuela Solutions Group of the Atlantic Council, and the Education Advisory Board of the Association of International Energy Negotiators. 

Monaldi was previously a visiting professor at the School of Government at the Tecnológico de Monterrey in México; an adjunct senior research scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University; a visiting professor of energy policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government; an associate of the Geopolitics of Energy Project and the Roy Family Fellow of the Environment and Natural Resources Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; the Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor in Latin American Studies at Harvard University; an adjunct professor of international energy policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; a visiting professor of political economy at Stanford University; a national fellow at the Hoover Institution; and a researcher and lecturer in political economy at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas. He has also been a visiting lecturer at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, and the Universidad ESAN in Lima.

Monaldi is a leading scholar on the politics and economics of energy. He also studies policy related to resources and wealth management in Latin America and developing countries. He has consulted with numerous international institutions, governments and companies — including the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, CAF Development Bank of Latin America, Saudi Aramco, Ecopetrol, PDVSA, PEMEX, Shell, Chevron, Total Energies, Equinor, JP Morgan, Barclays, Natural Resource Governance Institute, Harvard Center for International Development, CERA (S&P), Rystad, Wood Mackenzie, Eurasia Group, Medley Global Advisors, and the governments of Norway, the U.K,, the U.S., Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Kazakhstan.

Monaldi has authored and coauthored numerous academic publications, including “Shale Renders the Obsolescing Bargain Obsolete: Political Risk and Foreign Investment in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta” (Resources Policy, 2021); “The Cyclical Phenomenon of Resource Nationalism in Latin America” in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia (Oxford University Press, 2020); “The Political Economy of Oil Taxation in Latin America” in “The Political Economy of Taxation in Latin America,” G. Flores-Macias, ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2019); “Institutional Collapse” in “Venezuela Before Chavez: Anatomy of an Economic Collapse,” R. Hausmann and F. Rodriguez, eds. (Penn State University Press, 2014); “Oil Fueled Centralism,” in “Oil and Gas in Federal Systems,” G. Anderson, ed. (Oxford University Press, 2012); and “The Political Economy of Oil Contract Renegotiation in Venezuela,” in “The Natural Resources Trap: Private Investment without Public Commitment,” W. Hogan and F. Struzenegger, eds. (MIT Press, 2010).

He holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in political science (political economy) from Stanford University, an M.A. in international and development economics from Yale University, and a B.A. in economics from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello.

Contact at [email protected] or 713-348-2476.