Najat A. Saliba

Saliba grew up on a banana farm in Lebanon, where she was inspired by her father's connection to nature. When the Lebanese Civil War forced her family to move to the city, Saliba became interested in ways to mitigate air pollution. Saliba studied at Lebanese University, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 1986.[1] She moved to the United States for her graduate studies and earned her master's degree at California State University, Long Beach.[2][3] She completed her doctoral studies at the University of Southern California.[4] She completed a thesis on water pollution and studied catalysis.[5] She was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Irvine.[2]

Saliba returned to Lebanon after the Civil War, and joined the American University of Beirut in 2001.[6] She helped to establish the Ibsar Nature Conservation Center for Sustainable Futures in 2002, which looked to protect Lebanon's biodiversity.[2] Today she is Director of Ibsar, which has since been renamed the Nature Conservation Center, at the American University of Beirut.[7] Saliba established the Atmospheric and Analytical Laboratory.[6] In her early career she struggled to get chemicals, as the majority of Western companies would not ship to Lebanon for fear that they would be used to make weapons.[2]

Her research considers ambient pollutants in Lebanon and the Middle East.[8] Saliba investigates the toxic and carcinogenic chemical constituents of electronic cigarettes and hookahs.[8] She was the first to identify compounds such as formaldehyde in hookahs, and went on to show that electronic cigarettes can generate carbon monoxide.[8] She is part of the Center for the Study of Tobacco Products at Virginia Commonwealth University.[9] Saliba is part of a National Institutes of Health project to investigate the impact of smoking shisha.[2] She was part of a $2.8 million grant to develop computer models to analyse tobacco toxicity.[10] Saliba contributed to the World Health Organization Air Quality Expert Meetings.[11]

She established the first Lebanese atmospheric pollutants database. She became concerned about the open-air burning of Lebanese waste; and showed that the incineration could increase the amount of carcinogens in the air by 2,300%.[12][13] She showed a variety of toxins are emitted during the burning of waste, and measured their concentration at the top of a four-story apartment building in Beirut. She identified particulate matter and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as well as lead, cadmium, titanium and arsenic from metal burning. Saliba contributed to the American University of Beirut Guide to Municipal Solid Waste.[14] She established international protocols for the chemical studies of water pipes.[15] Saliba develops innovative materials and methods to study atmospheric pollutants.[16] In 2018 Saliba's American University of Beirut Nature Conservation Center was selected as one of the top influencing organisations in the regeneration movement by Lush.[11]

Saliba is an editor of PeerJ.[15]