Prof Ibtesam Badhrees

Senior Researcher

Ibtesam Saeed Badhrees is a Saudi experimental particle physicist and a senior research scientist at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) in Riyadh. She was the first Saudi woman to join CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where she began work as a user researcher in 2006, and the first Saudi woman holding a doctorate to work at KACST's National Center for Mathematics and Physics. She earned a BSc in Physics from King Abdulaziz University in 1990, an MSc in Applied Physics and Laser from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1997, and a PhD in Particle Physics from the University of Bern in 2011, followed by a second doctorate in International Relations from the Geneva School of Diplomacy. In August 2014 the American Physical Society named her Woman Physicist of the Month, making her the first non-American physicist to receive the recognition, a distinction reported by the Saudi Press Agency. Her research spans experimental elementary particle physics, neutrino and astroparticle physics, medical physics and nuclear physics, and she has held an adjunct professorship at Carleton University in Ottawa. She is among the most-cited researchers at KACST and is active in science diplomacy alongside her laboratory work.