Rayyanah Barnawi is an astronaut representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and serving as a mission specialist on the Ax-2 mission. A biomedical researcher with almost a decade of experience in cancer stem-cell research, Barnawi will be working to facilitate Saudi Arabia’s scientific research as mission specialist aboard Axiom Space’s second private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS), Ax-2. Barnawi will be making history as the first Saudi female astronaut to go to space and one of the first Saudi astronauts to visit the ISS