Background
Dr. Newsha Ajami is an internationally recognized leader in sustainable water management, climate resilience, and infrastructure innovation, with deep expertise at the intersection of science, policy, finance, and technology. She is the Founding Director of the Program on Risk, Resilience, and Recovery at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Trained as a civil and environmental engineer and having served in multiple policy and governance roles, her work focuses on advancing water security and climate resilience through integrated approaches to infrastructure, institutional design, and investment strategy.
Dr. Ajami brings a systems-level perspective to complex challenges, advising organizations on how to align science, governance, and capital to enable climate adaptation and long-term system reliability. She has pioneered data-driven and risk-informed approaches to better understand the human, institutional, and policy dynamics shaping resilient urban water and hydrologic systems.
Previously, she served as Chief Strategic Development Officer for Research in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she led cross-sector initiatives at the nexus of water, energy, and climate. She also co-led the development of the Aspen Institute’s National Water Strategy, a multi-stakeholder roadmap to strengthen U.S. water security, modernize infrastructure, and align water systems with economic growth and climate resilience.
Over her 20+ year career, Dr. Ajami has built and led research and policy programs and advised national and international institutions, utilities, investors, and foundations on strategies to address climate risk and infrastructure transformation. She brings governance experience, having served as a mayoral appointee to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, a gubernatorial appointee to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, and a member of the National Academies’ Board on Water Science and Technology. She currently serves as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and holds advisory and board roles across nonprofit and private-sector organizations, including Blue Forest Conservation, Qatium, Nature for Water, and the American Flood Coalition.
A strategic thinker and trusted advisor, Dr. Ajami works with leadership teams to navigate uncertainty, design resilient systems, and unlock financing pathways across sectors, including water, digital infrastructure, circular economy, and carbon removal. Her work has been featured in Science Advances, Nature Sustainability, and major policy and media outlets.
She holds a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Irvine, and is a Fellow and Ambassador Award recipient of the American Geophysical Union.