Adah Almutairi (; born November 1, 1976) is a

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Her work focuses on

nanomedicine Nanomedicine is the medical application of nanotechnology, translating historic nanoscience insights and inventions into practical application. Nanomedicine ranges from the medical applications of nanomaterials and biological devices, to n ...

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

and

polymer science Polymer science or macromolecular science is a subfield of materials science concerned with polymers, primarily synthetic polymers such as plastics and elastomers. The field of polymer science includes researchers in multiple disciplines inclu ...

Early life and education

Almutairi was born on November 1, 1976, in

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: *Portland, Oregon, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon *Portland, Maine, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine *Isle of Portland, a tied island in the English Channel Portland may also r ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

to Saudi parents.

Academic career

She obtained her Ph.D. in

materials chemistry Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials scien ...

from

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of Cali ...

, with a focus on electron delocalization and molecular structure in 2005. She completed her postdoctoral studies in chemistry and chemical engineering at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, from 2005 to 2008. At Berkeley, Almutairi worked with

Jean Fréchet Jean M.J. Fréchet (born August 1944) is a French-American chemist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for his work on polymers including polymer-supported chemistry, chemically amplified photore ...

where she developed several nanoprobes for

in vivo Studies that are ''in vivo'' (Latin for "within the living"; often not italicized in English) are those in which the effects of various biological entities are tested on whole, living organisms or cells, usually animals, including humans, an ...

molecular imaging Molecular imaging is a field of medical imaging that focuses on imaging molecules of medical interest within living patients. This is in contrast to conventional methods for obtaining molecular information from preserved tissue samples, such as h ...

. She joined the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

in 2008. Almutairi is a Board of Trustees Member with the Future Investment Initiative.

Awards and Honors

Almutairi received the

NIH Director's New Innovator Award National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award is a research initiative first announced in 2007 designed to supports exceptionally creative, early-career investigators who propose innovative, high-impact projects. The focus is specif ...

in 2009. She is a 2016 Kavli Fellow and 2023 TAKREEM Laureate.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Almutairi, Ghadah Scientists from Portland, Oregon Occidental College alumni Living people University of California, Riverside alumni 21st-century American chemists Saudi Arabian women chemists Saudi Arabian chemists 21st-century American women engineers 21st-century American engineers Saudi Arabian women engineers American chemical engineers American women chemical engineers 1976 births American people of Saudi Arabian descent Arab chemists