Salma Waheedi

Salma Waheedi is a Senior Clinical Instructor and Lecturer on Law at the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) and Associate Director of the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World (PLSMW). She is also an affiliated faculty of the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School and an affiliate of the Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative at the Harvard Divinity School.

Salma’s legal practice and research focus on social and economic justice, gender justice, and business and human rights, with a primary interest in the Middle East and North Africa. Before joining IHRC, she practiced law in the areas of accountability litigation, corporate compliance, and immigration and refugee law, including at Chicago’s United African Organization, Baker McKenzie LLP, and the Transnational Development Clinic at Yale Law School. She also held visiting fellowships with the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School and the Committee on Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard university. 

Prior to pursuing a law career, Salma held senior positions at the Economic Development Board of her native country Bahrain, where she advised on economic and fiscal policy and led economic reform initiatives focused on social welfare, land reform, business regulatory reform, and small and medium enterprise growth. Earlier at the Bahrain Ministry of Finance, she served as senior economist, international trade negotiator, and lead liaison on Bahrain’s Free Trade Agreement with the United States. She also worked as a strategy consultant in the energy sector and held positions as a political analyst and researcher.

Salma holds a JD from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, an MA in Government and International Law from Georgetown University, an MA in International Affairs with a concentration in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University, and a BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.