Quick Facts
Biography
Rana Dajani is a Jordanian molecular biologist and Associate Professor at Hashemite University. Dajani earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology in 2005 from the University of Iowa. She has fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and Eisenhower Fellowship. Dr. Dajani is a Fulbright scholar alumna, having received two Fulbright awards. She is a former Yale visiting professor at the Yale stem cell center and visiting Scholar at both University of Cambridge and the Stem Cell Therapy Center, Jordan.
The UK-based Muslim Science Magazine praised her as one of the most influential women scientists in the Islamic World; and she was ranked #13 among the "100 Most Powerful Arab Women" in CEO Middle East Magazine.
Honors and awards
The U.S. Embassy in Jordan in concert with the U.S. Embassy Amman’s Environment, Science, Technology and Health Office for the Middle East and North Africa inducted Dajani into the Women in Science Hall of Fame in 2015. This honor recognized her work and theories on biological evolution and Islam, focusing on genome-wide research on diabetes, cancer and stem cells. She was instrumental in establishing the terms of law for the use of stem cell therapy in Jordan, which opened the door for regulation in the Arab and Islamic world.
Dajani is an advocate for science education for women, as well as for biological evolution theory in relation to Islam. She founded and directed the We Love Reading program that advocates for child literacy across 30 countries. We Love Reading mentored and trained 730 women in the techniques of storytelling and in 2017 it wins UNESCO’s King Sejong Literacy Prize. The outcome of this led to the establishment of 330 libraries throughout Jordan, enriching the literacy of over 10,000 children, 60% female and 40% male. For this work she received the following honors: the 2015 Star Award for education impact; a 2015 honor for the 50 Most Talented Social Innovators at the World CSR Congress; the 2015 OpenIDEO "Top Idea" for child refugees; she received the Library of Congress Literary Award for Best Practices in 2013; in 2009 she received the Synergos award for Arab world social innovators.
In 2010, Dajani was inducted into the membership of the Clinton Global Initiative of the Clinton Foundation in 2010. In 2014 Dajani won the WISE Qatar Award, and the 2014 King Hussein Medal of Honor, and in 2009 received the King Hussein Cancer Center & Biotechnology Institute award.
Publications and speaking engagements
Dajani is a member of the United Nations' Jordanian Women's Advisory Council. She has published in several peer reviewed journals and in Science, and in Nature journals. Among her speaking engagements is the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship symposium at the University of Cambridge; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McGill University, and at the British Council Belief in Dialogue conference.