Lana Fahad Alabbasi is an astrophysics researcher and science education advocate from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. As a senior physics student at King Abdulaziz University, she received distinction for her research, most recently earning the Best Bachelor’s Graduation Thesis in Physics award.
Lana became the first Saudi to join the LIGO international collaboration after receiving a research award to complete a fellowship at Caltech, where she contributed to pioneering work on gravitational waves.
She is the first student from her university to be named a Rhodes Scholar and will pursue a PhD in astrophysics at Oxford University beginning in autumn 2025. Lana is the founder and director of the Falak Research Program, Saudi Arabia’s first space research mentorship initiative. The programme has successfully mentored young researchers and produced 14 novel space-related research projects. Lana strongly advocates for fundamental scientific research, firmly believing in its power to drive transformative discoveries and applications.
She plans to continue her research in gravitational waves from black holes and neutron stars and to expand opportunities for Saudi women in astrophysics to actively contribute to global scientific efforts aimed at understanding the universe.
