Newsha K. Ajami, is the Chief Development Officer for Research at EESA. A leading expert in sustainable water resource management, smart cities, and the water-energy-food nexus, she uses data science principles to study the human and policy dimensions of urban water and hydrologic systems. In her role at LBL, she is focused on developing and leading strategic and impact-focused research initiatives at the nexus of water, energy, and carbon.

In addition to her role at LBL, Dr. Ajami holds other key leadership positions. She was (2021-2024) a mayoral appointee to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and served two terms (2013-2021) as a gubernatorial appointee to the Bay Area Regional Water Quality Control Board. She served (2018-2024) on the National Academies Board on Water Science and Technology and serves as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute. Dr. Ajami also serves on several state-level and national advisory boards.

Prior to her tenure at LBL, Dr. Ajami founded and directed the Stanford Urban Water Policy program and served as a senior research scholar at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. She also held a prestigious Science, Policy, and Technology fellowship at the California State Senate’s Natural Resources and Water Committee, where she contributed to shaping water and energy-related legislation. She is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and her groundbreaking contributions to bridging science, policy, and society have been recognized with prestigious ambassador awards from the organization.

Area of Interest

• Civil Engineering
• Environmental Engineering
• Applied Mathematics
• Infrastructure Engineering and Asset Management
• Simulation and Modelling
• Statistics
• Environment and Resource Economics
• Surfacewater Hydrology

Education

• PhD|University of California, Irvine, Irvine, United States|2006
• MS|University of Arizona, Tucson, United States|2002
• MS|Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran|1999
• BS|Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran|1997

Recent Publications