Dr. Adil Najam is a globally renowned academic and intellectual. He is a leading expert on issues related to developing country environmental policy, especially climate change, and also on the politics of South Asia. He was the Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and Professor of International Relations and of Geography & Environment, both at Boston University before joining as Vice Chancellor of Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).
Dr. Adil Najam was born in Rawalpindi. He attended University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, (UET). He did his B.Sc. in Civil Engineering. After Graduating from UET, Adil Najam went to United States for higher studies where he attended MIT. Prof. Najam holds two Masters Degrees and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His teaching and research focusses on international relations, environment and development policy, negotiation and conflict resolution, and on South Asian issues.
Adil Najam was an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston University (1997–2002), an Associate Professor of International Negotiation and Diplomacy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (2002–2007), and returned to Boston University as a Professor of International Relations and of Geography and Environment in 2007. In November 2007, Adil Najam was named The Frederick S. Pardee Professor of Global Public Policy and the Director of Boston University's Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, where he replaced eminent historian David Fromkin. In 2011 he was appointed the Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan.
Prof. Najam has published widely in scholarly journals and is author of over 100 scholarly papers and book chapters. His recent books include "Envisioning a Sustainable Development Agenda for Trade and Environment" (co-editor, 2007), "Portrait of a Giving Community" (2007), "Environment, Development and Human Security" (editor, 2003), "Civic Entrepreneurship" (co-author, 2002), amongst others. He serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly academic journals, including Global Governance, Ecological Economics, and Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. He also writes occasionally in the international press and in 2007 launched his blog "All Things Pakistan (Pakistaniat)."
In 2009 Prof. Adil Najam was awarded the civil award the Sitara-i-Imtiaz by the President of Pakistan for his services to education and the environment. In 2008 Prof. Najam was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the UN Committee for Development Policy (CDP) which advises the UN ECOSOC on development priorities and is also responsible for periodic reviews of the UN’s list of Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Leading development thinkers like Ester Boserup, Gamani Corea, Hernando de Soto, Mahbub ul Haq, Sir Richard Jolly, Robert McNamara, Sir Shridath Ramphal, Klaus Schwab, and Nobel winning economist Jan Tinbergen have served on the CDP in the past. Prof. Najam was also one of the Lead Authors of the Third and Fourth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), works for which the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.
Prof. Adil Najam won the Fletcher School Paddock Teaching Award (2004), MIT's Goodwin Medal for Effective Teaching (1997), the International Political Science Association's Stein Rokkan Award (1997), and the Pakistan Television Outstanding Achievement Medal (1990). He has been a famous Pakistani TV Talk Show host and journalist who has emerged as a rising star in the international environmental movement according to The Boston Globe.
In 2011 Prof. Adil Najam was elected to the Board of Trustees of WWF-International, the World Wide Fund for Nature. He was also elected the Chairman of the Board of Governors of LEAD-Pakistan. Dr. Najam also serves on the Board of the Pakistan Institute for Environment-Development Action Research (PIEDAR) and is a Visiting Research Fellow of Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPPI) Islamabad.
