BU Professor Honored

Adil Najam is awarded one of Pakistan’s highest civilian honors

By Brendan Gauthier (COM’11)

Every year, the president of Pakistan honors citizens and foreign nationals on the country’s Independence Day, August 14.

This year, President Asif Ali Zardari conferred the honor of Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence) on Adil Najam, BU’s Frederick S. Pardee Professor of Global Public Policy. He was awarded the civil decoration — one of the nation’s highest — for his contributions to, and public service in, the environment, development, and public policy.

Najam also is a College of Arts & Sciences professor of international relations and of geography and environment and director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, which convenes symposia and conducts interdisciplinary, policy-relevant, and future-oriented research that contributes to long-term improvements in the human condition. He is a member of the United Nations Committee for Development Policy (CDP).

Before coming to the United States, Najam was a celebrity in Pakistan by his mid-20s, serving as a sports reporter, a TV talk show host, and a national environmental expert. He left Pakistan to pursue an engineering degree at MIT.

Najam’s current research focuses on issues of global public policy, especially those related to South Asia, Muslim countries, the environment, and development. He was a lead author for the third and fourth assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, work for which the panel was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Najam will formally accept the Sitara-i-Imtiaz award on Pakistan Day, March 23, 2010.

Brendan Gauthier can be reached at btgauth@gmail.com.

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