Mazhar Al-Shereidah, born 1940 in Basrah, Iraq, graduated as Economist from Innsbruck University in 1964, pursued postgraduate studies in Political Sciences at Vienna University, and gained his Doctorate in Social Sciences at the Central University of Venezuela where he started lecturing in 1967 and co-founded, in 1973, Postgraduate Studies in Petroleum Economics at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences. He has written numerous books on his specialty, and continues his academic activities with vigor.