Nadia B. Ahmad

Dr. Ahmad is a Professor of Law at Barry University School of Law, where she has taught since 2015 and has coordinated the Environmental and Earth Law Certificate Program, and an Associate Professor at the KAPSARC School of Public Policy. She was a Visiting Associate Professor at Yale Law School in 2021 and the inaugural Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Law at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.

Her research concerns the law and governance of energy and environmental systems in transition and asks which communities, jurisdictions, and traditions are recognized in decisions about energy infrastructure and the allocation of resources. She has written on energy facility and pipeline siting, environmental sovereignty in resource development, hydrokinetic investment policy in Pakistan, mineral policy and international investment law, the regulation of advanced biofuels, the finance architecture of IRENA and the Energy Charter Treaty, and the comparative and Islamic legal traditions that shape how environmental obligation is understood. Her scholarship has appeared in the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum, the Virginia Environmental Law Journal, the Fordham Urban Law Journal, and the William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, and in volumes issued by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, and Springer. 

She also examines how federal disaster systems decide which places count as disaster-affected, drawing on county-level panel analysis of United States disaster declarations and a governance-failure taxonomy to treat that recognition as an administrative act. In 2026, she submitted an expert opinion in an amicus brief led by Southern Legal Counsel in Comité Diálogo Ambiental, Inc. v. FEMA before the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, where the underlying question concerned the depth of environmental review required before reconstruction of Puerto Rico's energy grid.

Trained in geospatial analysis and machine learning through programs at NASA, MIT, and Yale, she co-founded Mudder AI, which applies satellite, drone, and geotagged data to disaster response and evacuation planning, and continues the underlying pilots as research. As lead co-Principal Investigator on the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Just Energy Transitions and Place project she led the Florida qualitative case, and she is currently editing a volume on energy security law and policy for Oxford University Press.

She co-edits the Land Use and Environmental Law Review for Thomson Reuters and co-authors Environmental Justice: Law, Policy and Regulation, now in its fourth edition. She is a Lead Coordinating Author of Chapter 13, "Science, Technology and Innovation for a Resilient Planet," for the eighth edition of the UNESCO Science Report. She is also the lead editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Islam and Environmental Law (Cambridge University Press, 2026), co-editor of the Handbook of AI and Environmental Law (Edward Elgar, forthcoming), and co-author of Environmental Law Nightmares (American Bar Association, forthcoming).

A Kerry Fellow at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs (2022-2023) and an affiliate of Harvard Law School's Institute for Global Law and Policy since 2013, Dr. Ahmad has served as an official American Bar Association delegate to COP28 in Dubai and COP30 in Belém. She was part of the global coalition awarded the 2023 United Nations Human Rights Prize for its campaign to secure universal recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

She came to the environmental field through journalism, reporting on Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, environmental contamination, and infrastructure safety for The Daily Californian and continues to write for general audiences on energy and climate policy.

Dr. Ahmad holds a PhD in Environmental Studies from Yale University, an LL.M. in Natural Resources and Environmental Law from the University of Denver, a J.D. from the University of Florida, and a B.A. in Comparative Literature, with High Honors, from the University of California, Berkeley.

Research Projects

Recognition in Disaster Administration. County-level panel analysis of U.S. federal disaster declarations with a taxonomy of governance failures.

Just Energy Transitions and Place. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Lead co-PI, leading the Florida qualitative case on place attachment and transition acceptance.

Advanced Biofuels Regulation. Responsive regulation, land conservation conflict, and the political economy of feedstock development. Published in the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum, the Virginia Environmental Law Journal, and the University of Miami Law Review.

Energy Security Law and Policy. Edited volume in progress, Oxford University Press, on energy security governance under geopolitical realignment.

The Cambridge Handbook of Islam and Environmental Law. Cambridge University Press, 2026. Lead editor.

Handbook of AI and Environmental Law. Edward Elgar, forthcoming. Co-editor.

UNESCO Science Report, 8th edition. Lead Coordinating Author, Chapter 13, "Science, Technology and Innovation for a Resilient Planet."

Energy Law and Policy Expertise

Expert opinion, Comité Diálogo Ambiental, Inc. v. FEMA, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (2026)

Reviewer, National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap, U.S. Department of Energy

Panel Reviewer, National Science Foundation

Academic Advisory Group, International Bar Association Section on Energy, Environment, Natural Resources and Infrastructure Law

Expert, International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation Taskforce on Renewable Energy

Co-editor, Land Use and Environmental Law Review, Thomson Reuters

Review Editor, Frontiers in Climate, Climate Law and Policy

Professional Leadership

Kerry Fellow, Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs

Affiliate, Institute for Global Law and Policy, Harvard Law School

Co-Chair, Environmental Justice Task Force, American Bar Association

Official delegate, COP28 Dubai and COP30 Belém, American Bar Association

UNESCO International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence, Industrial Club

Committee of Scholars, Smithsonian American Women's History Museum