Hashima Hasan

Hashima Hasan (born February 8, 1950) is an Indian American scientist who has worked in the United States and India. She is the Program Scientist for the Nuclear Spectroscopic Array (NuSTAR), Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), the NASA/W. M. Keck Observatory partnership and the Education and Public Outreach Lead for Astrophysics. She attended a Roman Catholic all-girls school, At this school the girls, including Hasan were limited in the types of scientific knowledge they were allowed to learn, the exception being botany. She was further inspired to get into the world of science by her teacher in the 6th grade, and the launch of Sputnik-1.

Hasan earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Lucknow University. Upon her arrival back to India she took on the role of a post-doctoral scholar at Mumbai's Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Hasan has published articles in various peer-reviewed journals, including Icarus, The Astrophysical Journal, and Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Awards Hasan was honored with awards and fellowships like the Commonwealth Fellowship from 1973-1976 and the NASA HQ Exceptional Performance Award in 2008. She was a National Research Council Resident Research Associate from 1981-1983. As a student, she received a gold medal for physics and a merit award.

Personal life Hasan married Aftab Ansari, a scientific officer at the National Institutes of Health, in 1979. They have two sons.