After completing his education in the US in the areas of monetary economics, international economics and public finance, Dr. Nilsen taught mathematically sophisticated doctoral students from former socialist economies in Prague, Czech Republic for two years and then taught undergraduates in Copenhagen for another two years. In 1998 he became a program director at Studienzentrum Gerzensee, a foundation of the Swiss National Bank, which entailed teaching monetary economics to invited central bankers from over 100 nations, thus gaining invaluable experience in understanding the importance of the economics of development. Dr. Nilsen concurrently taught courses at the university of Bern during this time. His non-economic interests are computer programming, languages, and philosophy.