She is a graduate of Smith College and holds a Ph.D. in political science, awarded by Columbia University, Department of Public Law and Government. Her dissertation was entitled "American Natural Scientists in the Policy Process: Three Atomic Energy Issues and Their Foreign Policy Implications". In 1956, she became an instructor in the Department of Social Sciences at New York City Community College. Next she served as a Research Assistant for the Council for Atomic Age Studies from 1961 to 1963. During the 1960s she worked with Alvin Weinberg at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she conducted civil defense research related to the potential societal aftereffects of a nuclear weapons attack. She was the first social scientist at ORNL, where she was director of Science in Society Studies in the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies from 1963–1966. After leaving ORNL she extended her interests and became known in community activist issues relating to corporate and government policies as they affect local communities. She served as a chairman of the board of directors of the Council for Responsible Genetics from 1994–1996, is a trustee of Safety Systems, and was an editor for Sage Publications. Nader is the President of the Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest which seeks to advance the ability of citizens to participate and shape the quality of democracy in their community.
Selected publications
Claire Nader. , Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 1966.
Claire Nader. "A Letter in Health Physics" in Health Physics, Printed in Northern Ireland, Pergamon Press. Vol. 14, pp. 379–381.
Claire Nader. Technical Experts in Developing Countries, in , eds. C. Nader and A. B. Zahlan. Cambridge University Press.
Claire Nader. , in "Health Physics" Vol. 29, No.1, pp. 181–206.
Claire Nader. "The Need and Desirability for Problem-Focused Research on The Interrelationships Between Science and Technology and Values and Ethics" April 29, 1975. Also AAAS Interdisciplinary Workshop on the Interrelationships Between Science and Technology and Ethics and Values.
Claire Nader. "The Energy of Waste and the Problem of Informed Choices," in Energy and the Environment Cost-Benefit Analysis, R.A. Karam and K.Z. Morgan, eds. Energy – An International Jr. New York: Pergamon Press, pp. 625–629.
Claire Nader. "Comment" in Toxic Substances and Trade Secrecy, Technical Information Project, Washington, D.C., pp. 63–66.
Claire Nader. , Annals of New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 329, Public Control of Environmental Health Hazards. Pages 213–220, October 1979.
Claire Nader and Laura Nader. A Wide Angle on Regulation, in Regulatory Policy and the Social Sciences, R. Noll, ed. University of California Press, pp. 141–160.
