Salma Waheedi is a Lecturer on Law and Executive Director of the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World (PLSMW) at Harvard Law School. The Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World focuses on the complex relationships between law and society in Muslim majority and minority contexts. It supports innovative and cutting-edge scholarship and covers various themes such as human rights, gender justice, family law reform, and environmental protection.

Waheedi 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. As a Religion and Public Life Fellow in Conflict and Peace, Waheedi will be contributing the HDS 3335 course "Learning in Context: Narratives of Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine," which is taught by Atalia Omer, T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding. She will also serve as an ongoing intellectual partner to the Religion, Conflict & Peace Initiative, particularly in relation to international human rights and legal issues related to the Israel/Palestine case study.

Waheedi’s research and legal practice focus on gender, social and economic justice, comparative constitutional law, Islamic law, and human rights, with extensive expertise in the Middle East and North Africa. She represented and advised individual and organizational clients seeking legal accountability and remedies for human rights violations in both domestic and international forums and has long been an advocate on behalf of multiple regional initiatives and coalitions for the advancement of legal equality for women and minorities. At Harvard Law School, Waheedi leads collaborative policy research and advocacy projects to train and empower students to become effective international lawyers and advocates. 

Prior to joining Harvard Law School, Waheedi practiced in the areas of corporate accountability litigation, regulatory 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 held visiting fellowships at Harvard Law School’s Islamic Legal Studies Program and Harvard University’s Committee on Middle Eastern Studies. Between 2004-2012, she held senior positions at Bahrain’s Economic Development Board and Ministry of Finance, engaged in Middle East policy research and analysis at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, and served as a strategy consultant in the energy sector. 

Waheedi 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.