Rana Dajani

Rana Dajani is a Jordanian molecular biologist and professor at the Hashemite University, born to a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother; she describes herself as "half Palestinian and half Syrian with a Jordanian passport". ^{1 2}

She is known for two bodies of work: her research on the genetics of Circassian and Chechen populations in Jordan and genome-wide association studies, and the stem-cell research ethics legislation it prompted in Jordan; and her founding of We Love Reading, which trains women to read aloud to children and builds neighbourhood libraries in dozens of countries, and which won the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize in 2017. ^{1 3}

Her published curriculum vitae gives her place of birth as Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which agrees with Wikidata. Her birth year (1964) is stated in neither article nor in her CV, and the Wikidata date-of-birth value is unusable; the year is recorded in her person record as the one given in the founder's century list, with that caveat attached. ^{4 5}

She took a General Certificate of Education from the University of London in 1985, then a BSc in biology and an MSc in biology (1992) at the University of Jordan, winning the First Honors Award for both degrees; the Arabic article dates her graduation from the university's Faculty of Science to 1989. She earned her PhD in molecular biology at the University of Iowa in 2005. ^{1 2}

After her master's she lectured at Philadelphia University in Jordan and taught for five years at Amman Academy. She became an assistant professor at the Hashemite University around 2005 and is a tenured professor of biology and biotechnology there; she directed its Center for Service Learning (2009–10) and its Center for Studies (2011–12). ^{1 2}

She was a visiting assistant professor at the Yale Stem Cell Center (September 2012, on a Fulbright research scholarship, 2012–13), a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (selected October 2017), a visiting scholar at Cambridge and at the Stem Cell Therapy Center in Jordan, the Zuzana Simoniova Cmelikova Visiting Scholar at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond (2019–21), a mentor in Stanford's AMENDS programme since 2012, a member of the Fetzer Institute's advisory council, and a member of the Mustafa Prize Foundation's advisory board from March 2019. ¹

She is president of the Society for the Advancement of Science and Technology in the Arab World (SASTA), co-founded the Islamic World Academy for Young Scientists (ISESCO), has been a member of the UN Women Jordan Advisory Council since 2013, has written as a freelance journalist since 2011, and edits at Frontiers in Immunology and Muslim-Science.com. ¹

Her research covers cell signalling, the genetics of Circassian and Chechen populations in Jordan, genome-wide association studies on diabetes and cancer, and stem cells; her work initiated Jordan's Stem Cell Research Ethics Law and its regulations. ^{1 2}

Returning to Jordan, Dajani found that there were no public libraries (against some 9,000 in the United States). She began read-aloud sessions for children — the first were held in a mosque — and built We Love Reading, run by the NGO Taghyeer, on training women as read-aloud ambassadors and founding libraries in their neighbourhoods. ¹

The sources differ on the starting date: UNESCO's article says she started the programme in 2006, while the English article's narrative places the founding of the NGO in 2009 and says "since its founding in 2010"; the dates are recorded as they stand. The figures are always dated: the programme had trained over 7,000 women across Jordan, Lebanon and Syria and established some 1,500 libraries in Jordan according to the English article; by 2024 it counted over 4,000 libraries in 60 countries, including refugee camps. UNESCO's article gives 1,000 libraries across Jordan's twelve governorates, a programme in the Zaatari refugee camp, and about 20,000 learners in 2016, 60 percent of them women. ^{1 3}

She is the author of Five Scarves: Doing the Impossible — If We Can Reverse Cell Fate, Why Can't We Redefine Success? (2018) and of We Love Reading — An Introduction (2019). ¹

This section reports positions carried by the sources; they are not the museum's verdict.

The sources describe Dajani as a strong advocate for the theory of biological evolution in relation to the religion of Islam, and for women's education and empowerment; in Five Scarves and her lectures she argues for redefining success beyond financial measures alone. The museum reports these positions as hers and takes no view on them. ¹

Her awards include the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize (2017), the Library of Congress Literacy Award for Best Practices (2013), the Synergos Arab World Social Innovator award (2009), the WISE Award (2014), a Stars Impact Award, the Order of Al Hussein for Distinguished Contributions, Second Class (2014), the King Hussein Medal of Honor (2014), induction into the US Embassy in Amman's Women in Science Hall of Fame (2015), the UNHCR Nansen Award for the Middle East and North Africa region (2020), the Jacob Klaus Social Entrepreneurship Award (2018), two Fulbright awards and an Eisenhower Fellowship. The UK-based Muslim Science Magazine named her among the most influential women scientists in the Islamic world, and Arabian Business ranked her 13th on its "World's 100 Most Powerful Arab Women" list. ^{1 3}

Dajani is a mother of four. ¹

• The defined sources cited above, registered in data/source/.
• Later translations and edits of this article need periodic review with clear update dates.