Ola El Zein

Dr Ola El-Zein is the Director of the Medical Library and lecturer at the American University of Beirut (AUB). She is the first woman to hold a PhD degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from AUB. She serves as a board member of the Arab World Association of Young Scientists (WAYS). She was chosen as the youngest woman scientist to participate in a plenary session about youth and science diplomacy in World Science Forum (WSF) 2017. She was also nominated as a member of the organizing committee for the WSF-2019. Dr Ola is the first country representative for Lebanon at Healthcare Information For All (HIFA) and a committee member of the IFLA E4GDH (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions Evidence for Global and Disaster Health). She is also the International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA) policy-making tracker rapporteur for Lebanon. She is also a member of Lebanese Library Association (LLA) and the American International Consortium of Academic Libraries (AMICAL).

She has extensive teaching experience since 2007 and has been in charge of several research initiatives and projects. She had published several research papers in prominent peer-reviewed international journals. I have been extensively involved in online learning and developing many highly visible guides about COVID-19 pandemic, tools for online learning and others. Ola has participated in several international conferences and workshops in different fields of biology, medicine, public health and science diplomacy in different countries.

Ola works on supporting medical research and improving the quality of health information, knowledge and research evidence to strengthen health systems and help in informing everyone of evidence-based information. She instructs physicians, faculty members and students at the faculties of Medicine, Nursing, and Health sciences, in conducting proper research. She has been an indispensable contributor to many health-related courses and programs at the AUB and has been part of numerous literature, scoping and systematic reviews. As a scientist and a woman, she strongly believes that she can make a difference in the world by integrating science with diplomacy.