Alumna Dr Rawan Olayan graduated from King Abdulaziz University with a bachelors in computer science in 2010, and didn’t miss a beat when she started her masters at KAUST the following semester. Having been introduced to KAUST through her two biomedical engineer brothers, Olayan’s familiarity with KAUST made it an easy choice, but, the caliber of its computer science department made it the right choice.

Computer science has countless applications and Olayan took advantage of many of them through her studies. Her masters focused on using bioinformatics to predict occurrences of ovarian cancer from genetic information. She then used machine learning to develop novel computational methods to predict drug-target interactions and their functional effects in her PhD.

“I enjoy my research because it is very applicable to real-world problems,” said Olayan. “It is all computational, but it is very powerful. The data I work with can predict new uses for drugs that already exist and help us understand complex diseases.”

An International Career as a Bioinformatics Scientist at Harvard University

Dr Olayan graduated in 2017, and moved to the East Coast of the United States.

“After my PhD, I continued to join computer science and bioinformatics through my postdoc at The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Connecticut,” she said. “There, I used my knowledge from my work in genetics data mining and drug discovery to investigate Alzheimer’s disease using mice as animal models.”

Olayan worked at the Jackson Lab through the pandemic, then in 2021 she was ready for something different.

“My experience working with animal models gave me a competitive edge when applying to Harvard,” she says. “But, it was my experience working at the intersection of academia and research consortium in my postdoc that prepared me for the highly collaborative environment at Harvard. And, when I think about it, my experience at KAUST prepared me for the diverse research teams that I have worked with through my professional career.”

Now, Olayan works as a bioinformatics scientist at Harvard but she stays connected to the KAUST community.

Lifelong Memories and KAUST Connections

“I still have friends at KAUST,” said Olayan. “I have even been able to collaborate with one of my former lab mates through work I did as a postdoc, and when I heard the sad news of our Professor Vladimir Bajic passing away I made sure to hold on to this personal and professional connection with my friend.”

Olayan also stays in touch by attending alumni events and looks forward to the day she can come back to KAUST for a visit. Her future career goals include landing a position as an assistant professor on track for tenure somewhere on the east coast of the United States, and she hopes current and future KAUST students will join her lab.

“I really enjoy working between academia and industry in my research, on current work at Harvard, and see that KAUST is encouraging students to explore both,” she said. “My advice to students is to travel often and make connections, and believe that graduating from KAUST will set you up for success.” 

Rawan Olayan (PhD '18, MS '12) by Melissa Pappas