Hadia Sheerazi

About

Hadia is a Senior Fellow at Constructive, supporting programming strategy, partnerships, and stakeholder engagement for U.S. Programs. As an award-winning interdisciplinary researcher-practitioner focused on the intersection of energy, resilience, and sustainable development, she brings deep technical expertise in leveraging systems thinking to advise project developers, investors, and policymakers on building trust and securing the political, regulatory, and community support needed to move billion-dollar innovative energy and critical infrastructure projects toward bankability and on-time deployment. She has advised first-of-a-kind (FOAK) and commercial-scale projects across renewables, industrial decarbonization, carbontech, next-generation geothermal and nuclear, and the responsible deployment of AI and data centers in the U.S. and globally. Hadia has led research, capacity-building, and partnerships to develop evidence-based frameworks, digital tools, and playbooks to advance best practices for meaningful stakeholder engagement in siting and permitting processes, and co-create benefits that are responsive to host communities’ needs and socio-economic priorities across geographies in the U.S. and globally. Hadia's work on energy, resilience, and sustainable development has been recognized by the Clean Energy Ministerial and the White House Council on Women and Girls, and she has been named to the Financial Times’ 50 Rising Stars in ESG, Reuters Events’ Trailblazing Women, and Yahoo! Finance’s HERoes Top 100 Future Leaders lists. She is the first individual global winner of the United Nations Development Programme-administered King Hamad Youth Empowerment Award to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for contributions to UN SDGs. Most recently, as North America Lead for the Mission Possible Partnership’s Build Clean Now campaign, she facilitated local decision-makers’ efforts to identify barriers and co-create near-term interventions to accelerate the deployment of priority clean industrial projects in Mexico and Canada. Previously, at Columbia University’s Climate School, she played a pivotal role in building the Carbon Management Research Initiative into a $20 million interdisciplinary research team, leading efforts to catalyze whole-systems change through data-driven research, public-private partnerships, and engagements with policymakers in the U.S. and energy and climate ministries across Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. As a recognized thought leader, Hadia has been invited to contribute to major energy, climate, and sustainability conferences including Reuters’ Global Energy Transition, NY Climate Week, D.C. Climate Week, America is All In, World Hydrogen, and the National Academies' flagship Climate Crossroads conferences. She has been invited to serve on expert committees and working groups convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine and the U.S. Department of Energy, and presented testimony before the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and New York State’s Climate Action Council (CAC). She has been a contributing member of the NPCC’s (New York City Panel on Climate Change) Climate and Science Projections working group to advise the Mayor’s Office on New York City’s multi-hazard adaptation strategy, including over $20 billion of investments and major coastal resiliency projects in all five boroughs to protect 8 million New Yorkers from the impacts of intensifying droughts, heatwaves, and flooding. Previously, Hadia served as an Ambassador for the ONE Campaign and Girl Rising, and was selected as a two-term Youth Delegate to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and World Bank youth summits. Hadia was a post-graduate Fellow to Nobel Laureate, Leymah Gbowee at Columbia University’s Women, Peace and Security Program, and served as a former Net Impact Climate Fellow, United Nations SDSN Local Pathways Fellow, Youth Expert in the Commonwealth Youth Climate Change Network, Climate Reality Leader, and Honorary Advisory to the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development at the United Nations. She has previously served as a mentor to young professionals in STEM through the Mercedes-Benz, beVisioneers Fellowship program, U.S Department of State and U.S. Energy Association’s Women Energy Leaders, Women in Green Hydrogen, and Global Women's Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET) programs. Hadia is actively involved in WRISE as an NYC chapter leader, is a member of the WRISE Leadership Forum’s Professional Development Committee, and was the recipient of the 2025 Kacie Peters Impact Award from Pivot Energy and WRISE for excelling in fostering inclusivity, making lasting contributions, and building community in the renewable energy field. She holds a dual MSc from Columbia University and a BA from St. John’s University.

Conferences I’ve Spoken At

• 1. Reuters Global Energy Transition
• 2. Reuters Energy Transition North America
• 3. The Nest Campus
• 4. New York Climate Week
• 5. D.C. Climate Week
• 6. Data Center World
• 7. DCD>Connect
• 8. Decarb Summits
• 9. America is All In
• 10. Climate Crossroads, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine, 11. World Hydrogen North America
• 12. World Electrolysis North America
• 13. WRISE Leadership Forum
• 14. Green Hydrogen Summit USA
• 15. Carbon Removal Summit
• 16. Intersolar & Energy Storage North America
• 17. UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Global Youth Environment Assembly
• 18. UN Environment Assembly (UNEA5)
• 19. UN ECOSOC Transitioning to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• 20. World Bank Climate Change Summit Rethinking Education for the New Millennium
• 21. World Bank Climate Change Summit Crowd-Sourcing Solutions for Climate Change