Zoubeida Ounaies is a Tunisian mechanical engineer, whose research involves nanocomposites, smart materials, and piezoelectricity in polymers. She is a professor of mechanical engineering at Pennsylvania State University, affiliated with the Penn State Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Materials Science and Engineering [1] and with the Institute of Energy and the Environment. [2] At Penn State, she is director of the Convergence Center for Living Multifunctional Material Systems, [3] [4] and acting director of the Materials Research Institute. [4]
Ounaies grew up in Tunisia, the daughter of an engineer. [5] [3] She went to Pennsylvania State University for her undergraduate and graduate education, [5] funded by the Tunisia Technology Transfer Program of the United States Agency for International Development, [6] and completed her Ph.D. in 1996. [7]
After postdoctoral research at NASA's Langley Research Center from 1997 to 2001, she returned to Penn State as a faculty member in 2001. [5] She moved to Texas A&M University in 2005, but returned to Penn State again in 2011. [7]
Ounaies is an ASME Fellow, elected in 2016. [4] [8] She is also a Fellow of SPIE, the International Society for Optics and Photonics. [4] [9]