Claudia Senik was born in Paris, France, in 1964. A former student of the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Ulm), she wrote her PhD thesis at DELTA (EHESS). She is now full Professor at the University Paris-Sorbonne and Research Fellow at Paris School of Economics. Her main research interest is the micro-econometric analysis of income distribution and subjective well-being. She frequently appeals to a comparative approach, based on the different environments in Western versus Eastern Europe. She is in charge of several international scientific cooperation programs related to her field of research.

She joined IZA as a Research Fellow in April 2006.