Geir Lundestad has been Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo and Secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 1990. He was born in Sulitjelma, a mining community in Northern Norway, in 1945. He received his MA (Cand.philol.) in history from the University of Oslo in 1970, PhD from the University of Tromsø in 1976.

Lundestad held positions at the University of Tromsø from 1974: Associate Professor of History, Professor of American Civilization 1979-88, Professor of History 1988-90. He has also been a research fellow at Harvard University (1978-79, 1983) and at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. (1988-89). While being the Director of the Nobel Institute, Lundestad is also Adjunct Professor of International History at the University of Oslo.

His main publications are: The American Non-Policy Towards Eastern Europe 1943-1947 (1975), America, Scandinavia and the Cold War 1945-1949 (1980), East, West, North, South. Major Developments in International Politics since 1945. (First Norwegian Edition in 1985, later revised, Fourth Edition 1999), "Empire" by integration: the United States and European integration 1945-1997 (1998).