Ghada Almutairi' is a scholar, inventor, and an entrepreneur, born on November 1, 1976 in Portland, Oregon, United States to Saudi parents. She is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry; affiliate faculty in the departments of Bioengineering and NanoEngineering; and Director of the Center for Excellence in Nanomedicine and Engineering in the Institute of Engineering in Medicine at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Her work focuses on nanomedicine, nanotechnology, chemistry and polymer science. Professor Almutairi is a 2016 Kavli Fellow and has received numerous honors and awards such as the NIH director’s new innovator award in 2009 for her work on “Chemically Amplified Response Strategies for Medical Sciences”.