Waleed El-Ansary is an Egyptian American with a Ph.D. in the human sciences from George Washington University and an M.A. in Economics from the University of Maryland. He is currently an adjunct professor of Islamic Economics at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, as well as a research scholar at the Islamic Research Institute, a think-tank based in Washington, D.C. His research focuses on Islamic and neoclassical economic theories and their implications for law and policy.

His publications include “The Spiritual Significance of Jihad in the Islamic Approach to Markets and the Environment” (forthcoming), “Linking Ethics and Economics: The Role of Ijtihad in the Regulation and Correction of Capital Markets” (co-authored), and “Recovering the Islamic Economic Intellectual Heritage: Problems and Possibilities.” He has lectured widely on topics relating to economics, philosophy, and policy. He contributed the remarkable essay "The Economics of Terrorism: How bin Laden is Changing the Rules of the Game" in Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition.