Nora AlMatrooshi
Astronaut
The first female Arab astronaut, Nora AlMatrooshi, marks a debut appearance on our list this year and rightly so. Selected from over 4,000 candidates, the Emirati astronaut is part of the second batch of the UAE Astronaut Programme. It’s hardly surprising that AlMatrooshi’s passion for space manifested at a young age, as she relished attending stargazing events. The Emirati trailblazer, who ranked first in the UAE for the 2011 International Mathematical Olympiad, has joined the NASA Astronaut Candidate Class of 2021 to train for future space missions.