As the Mahathir Mohamad Fellow, Professor Adil Najam leads research on Islam and Environment at the Centre. He also serves as the President of WWF International and as Dean Emeritus and Professor of International Relations and of Earth and Environment at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.

Earlier, he served as the founding Dean of the Pardee School, as Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Lahore, Pakistan and as the Director of the Boston University Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. In addition to Boston University, Professor Najam has taught at MIT and at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Professor Najam was a co-author for the Third and Fourth Assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); work for which the scientific panel was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for advancing the public understanding of climate change science. In 2008 he was invited by the United Nations Secretary-General to serve on the UN Committee on Development (CDP). He was a member of the President of Pakistan’s Special Task Force on Human Development (2001) and served on Pakistan’s Presidential Commission on Higher Education (2002). During 2019-20 he was appointed to the Prime Minister of Pakistan’s Advisory Council on Foreign Affairs. The government of Pakistan has conferred on him two of the highest civil awards for his global contributions to education and to climate change research: in 2010, the Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence); and in 2023, the Hilal-i-Imtiaz (Crescent of Excellence), both awarded by the then President(s) of Pakistan.