Hadia Sheerazi

Hadia is a Manager at RMI (founded as the Rocky Mountain Insititite), in the Climate-Aligned Industries (CAI) Program, co-leading projects focused on equitable industrial decarbonization. Her portfolio includes clean hydrogen hubs, Carbon Dioxide Removal (including Direct Air Capture hubs), shipping, steel, aluminum, and Waste-Methane sectors. She advises clean energy and infrastructure project developers, federal and state policymakers and regulators on how to operationalize the “Justice40 Initiative” framework via capacity-building workshops and webinars on best practices for equitable, inclusive and meaningful two-way engagement to derisk projects, designing and implementing well-rounded and responsive community benefit plans (CBPs), and remediating the impacts of historic underinvestment, environmental injustice, and decades of legacy pollution in low-income, BIPOC frontline communities. She is the lead author of RMI’s latest report on centering equity in the first U.S. clean hydrogen hubs and lessons for all clean energy and infrastructure projects:” Delivering Equitable and Meaningful Community Benefits via Clean Hydrogen Hubs ,” and served as a DOE expert merit reviewer of grant applications for federal funding opportunities for the equitable deployment of clean hydrogen.

Hadia has cross-sectoral experience in climate, energy policy and sustainability in the public, private, nonprofit, community-based organizations (CBOs), intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and academic sectors. She has been invited to speak at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine,  Intersolar North America, World Hydrogen Congress North America, Great Plains Institute’s CO2NNECT, Global Youth Climate Summit, National Association of State Energy Officials, the United Nations Environmental Programme’s (UNEP) Youth Environmental Assembly among others. Prior to joining RMI, Hadia served as the program manager of the Carbon Management Research Initiative (CaMRI) at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University Climate School, managing the Initiative’s research agenda and partnerships, events, and engagements with local, state, and federal policymakers in the United States, and organizing high-level decarbonization strategy briefings for energy and climate ministries around the world.

Hadia has been internationally recognized for her research and contributions to climate action, equity, sustainability, women’s and girls’ empowerment, and inclusive adaptation and resilience in disaster-prone communities.  She is the first global winner of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s King Hamad Youth Empowerment Award to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for contributions to Goals 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, and 17, and was recognized as one of the “50 Rising Stars in ESG‘‘ by Women of the Future, Tesco, Burberry, PwC, Aviva, Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, and The Financial Times. Most recently, she was named as a “Rising Star,” on Hydrogen Economist’s 2024 “Women in Hydrogen 50,” list. Hadia is a contributing researcher and author on the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), which helps inform the city’s multi billion-dollar climate hazard adaptation and resilience strategies to protect vulnerable and low-income communities from growing climate risks.