Laura Nader is Professor Emerita of Sociocultural Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has served on the faculty since 1960. She earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from Radcliffe College in 1961. Nader's research specializes in cultural anthropology and comparative methods, encompassing law, dispute resolution, controlling processes, kinship, religion, professional mind-sets, and ethnology of the Middle East, Mexico, Latin America, and the contemporary United States. Her current work focuses on how central dogmas are made and how they function in law, energy science, and anthropology. She has produced ethnographic films including To Make the Balance and Little Injustices, which are widely disseminated for educational purposes. Nader also holds the position of Senior Research Scholar at Berkeley's Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Nader's career is marked by influential publications that have shaped the fields of legal anthropology, science studies, and comparative cultural analysis. Key books include Contrarian Anthropology: The Unwritten Rules of Academia (Berghahn Books, 2018), What the Rest Think of the West: Since 600 AD (University of California Press, 2015), Culture and Dignity: Dialogues Between the Middle East and the West (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), The Energy Reader (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), Plunder: When the Rule of Law is Illegal (with Ugo Mattei, Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), Life of the Law: Anthropological Projects (University of California Press, 2002), Law in Culture and Society (University of California Press, 1997), Naked Science: Anthropological Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge (Routledge, 1996), Harmony Ideology: Justice and Control in a Zapotec Mountain Village (Stanford University Press, 1991), and Energy Choices in a Democratic Society (1980). She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the 1995 Kalven Prize from the Law and Society Association for distinguished research on law and society.

Professional Email: lanad@berkeley.edu