Dr Haleema Alamri, Materials Scientist

Haleema Alamri is a materials scientist who is searching for sustainable solutions for the environmental problems posed by traditional plastic materials.

Dr Haleema Alamri

Dr Haleema Alamri is a materials scientist whose work has contributed to the development of biodegradable plastics. With a background in chemistry and macromolecular engineering, her aim is to find sustainable solutions for the environmental problems posed by traditional plastic materials.

Born into a family of scientists, entrepreneurs and engineers in Saudi Arabia, Alamri studied chemistry at Umm Al-Qura University. After a master’s in chemistry and nanoscience at the University of Waterloo, Canada, she returned to Saudi Arabia and completed her PhD in chemistry at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in 2016.

Alamri was then hired by petroleum and natural gas company Saudi Aramco as a research scientist in its Research and Development Center (R&DC). She was promptly nominated to spend a year on a fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, working on cutting-edge research in chemistry and polymer science. She rejoined Saudi Aramco’s R&DC and held a number of senior roles, leading a team working on smart technologies for polymeric materials, including new techniques to help control their decomposition.

Over the course of her career, Alamri has authored or co-authored multiple peer-reviewed papers on more sustainable alternatives to plastic. These have covered diverse subjects including the safety of degradable polymers and the development of water-resistant materials inspired by lotus leaves. The aim of this research is to create the next generation of functional, cost-effective and degradable materials, which will never cause environmental harm by clogging up oceans or landfill.

In 2022, Alamri became director of the Innovation & Technology Observatory Department at the Saudi government’s Ministry of Energy. She is also a research affiliate at MIT.

You can follow her work here:

Twitter: @haleema_alamri

Further Reading

• Dr. Haleema Alamri, A Leading Saudi Female Scientist At Aramco, About Her

• Alumni Focus: Haleema A. Alamri - Ph.D. '16, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, 3 May 2018

Written by Moya Crockett, with thanks to Stylist for their support.