Fazia al-Kharafi

Faiza Mohammed Al-Kharafi (; born 1946) is a Kuwaiti chemist and academic. She was the president of Kuwait University from 1993 to 2002, and the first woman to head a major university in the Middle East.

Early life and education Faiza Al-Kharafi was born to a wealthy family in Kuwait in 1946 and developed an interest in science from a young age. She attended Al Merkab High School. She received her BSc from Ain Shams University in Cairo in 1967. She then attended Kuwait University where she founded the Corrosion and Electrochemistry Research Laboratory while in graduate school. She received her master's in 1972 and her PhD in 1975. She became a professor of chemistry at Kuwait University in 1987. On 5 July 1993, Emir Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah issued a decree appointing Al-Kharafi as rector of the university, and she became the first woman to head a major university in the Middle East.

Al-Kharafi has studied the impact of corrosion on engine cooling systems, distillation units for crude oil, high temperature geothermal brines, and tap water. She has also studied corrosion in polluted water and metal corrosion caused by pollution. As an electrochemist, she studied the electrochemical behavior of metals and metal alloys including aluminum, copper, platinum, niobium, vanadium, cadmium, brass, cobalt, and low carbon steel. She collaborated on the discovery of a class of molybdenum-based catalysts that improve gasoline octane without benzene by-products.

She joined the Board of the United Nations University in 1998. She received the Kuwait Prize in Applied Sciences in 2006. The Council for Gulf Relations named her Top Gulf Woman of the Year in 2008. In 2011, she was the recipient of the L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science for her work on corrosion.

The World Academy of Sciences names its annual TWAS-Fayzah M. Al-Kharafi Award in her honour. Funded by Al-Kharafi herself, the USD 4,000 prize recognises women scientists from science- and technology-lagging countries and rotates among scientific fields.

Personal life Al-Kharafi is married to Ali Mohammed Thanian Al-Ghanim and has five sons and ten grandchildren. Of her sons, Marzouq Al-Ghanim is a former speaker of Kuwait National Assembly. She spends her Summers at Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Her brothers are Jassem Al-Kharafi, former speaker of the Kuwaiti National Assembly, and the late Nasser Al-Kharafi. She shares in the family fortune from M. A. Kharafi & Sons.