Dr. Muna Naash is a leader in blindness research. She is recognized as an authority on genetic mutations associated with hereditary retinal disorders.

She has 3 patents and inventions in the development of technologies and treatments of vision loss.

Dr. Naash is an Adjunct faculty and Professor at the Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, where she held different positions, such as the John S. Dunn Endowed Professor of Biomedical Engineering in 2015.

Before joining the University of Houston, she lectured as Associate Professor and Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center for 15 years, and as Assistant and Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago for 8 years.

King Faisal Foundation Scholarship Paves the Way to Excellence

After earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Baghdad, College of Science in Iraq, Dr. Muna Naash moved to the United States and finished her doctoral, predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
King Faisal Foundation’s scholarship had a key role in helping her achieve her doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships. About this she said: “King Faisal Foundation’s support was instrumental in opening the doors for me to reach my current career. It enabled me to enroll in the graduate program at Baylor. When the fellowship ended a year later, I had already demonstrated my credentials and hard work and was able to get a fellowship from the research investigator I was working with. Without King Faisal Foundation, I would have not been accepted into the PhD program.”

Recognitions:

She received numerous awards and honors including two from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC), the first was the Provost Senior Research Award in 2005 and the second was the Senior Faculty Research Excellence Award for 2019-2020. She was voted one of the “50 Women Making a Difference in Oklahoma in 2005” by the Journal Record.