Contributor: Saleem Hassan Ali

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Saleem H. Ali is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont's Rubenstein School of Natural Resources, and on the adjunct faculty of Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. During the spring semester of 2007 he is also serving as the Associate Dean for Graduate Education in Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of environmental conflicts and how ecological factors can promote peace. He is also on the visting faculty for the United Nations mandated University for Peace (Costa Rica), where he teaches a course on Indigenous Environment and Development Conflicts. Much of his empirical research has focused on environmental conflicts in the mineral sector and he is the author of Mining, the Environment and Indigenous Development Conflicts (published the University of Arizona Press, fall 2003). He is currently completing a comparative study of the environmental and social impact of gemstone mining in Madgascar, Brazil and Southeast Asia, funded by the Tiffany Foundation.

Dr. Ali is also a member of the expert advisory group on environmental conflicts for the United Nations Environment Programme with a specific interest in transboundary conservation zones or "peace parks." As part of this effort, he is a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas and the IUCN Taskforce on Transboundary Conservation. He has also been involved in promoting environmental education in madrassahs (Islamic religious schools) and using techniques from environmental planning to study the rise of these institutions in his ethnic homeland -- Pakistan, under a grant from the United States Institute of Peace.

Prior to embarking on an academic career, Dr. Ali has worked as an environmental health and safety professional at General Electric (based at GE headquarters in Fairfield, CT, and at silicone resin manufacturing sites in New York). He has served as a consultant for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Health Canada as an Associate at the Boston-based consulting firm Industrial Economics Inc. Pro bono projects include a mining impact prospectus for the Crowe Tribe of Montana and research assistance to Cultural Survival (an indigenous rights NGO).