Born in Rawalpindi, Najam studied civil engineering at UET Lahore and received two Master's degrees and his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in international environmental policy. After graduating from MIT, Najam joined Boston University in 1997 as an assistant professor, and moved to the Fletcher School in 2002 where he worked until 2007 as an associate professor of negotiation and diplomacy. He re-joined Boston University in 2007 as a tenured professor and the Director of the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.[2]