Saja A. Fakhraldeen earned her MS (2011) and PhD (2015) in cancer biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) and her BS (2009) in biological engineering from MIT. Since May 2017, she has been working as a research scientist at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR), where she investigates bioactive properties of compounds isolated from Kuwait’s marine environment. She is currently working on generating the first metagenomic profile of marine microorganisms in Kuwait Bay, and on establishing the first mammalian cell culture and imaging facilities at KISR. Other interests that she is pursuing at KISR include wastewater epidemiology. In this field, she has coordinated routine shipment of urban sewage samples to Denmark as part of Kuwait’s participation in the Global Sewage Surveillance Program. She has also collaboratively developed a protocol for viral analysis of urban sewage samples. As of 2019, Fakhraldeen is a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) and a member of Sigma Xi – The Scientific Research Honor Society. She was also rewarded with the 2018 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science regional fellowship.