Sarafina Nance

Sarafina El-Badry Nance [2 BSc (Hons), MSc, Ph.D (candidate)] is an astrophysicist, analog astronaut, author, and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model.

She has conducted research at Harvard’s Center for Astrophysics and is now at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab completing her doctoral thesis on supernovae and cosmology. She has been awarded fellowships by the National Science Foundation, been named one of Forbes’ 30 Inspirational Women and was on Forbes’ list of “30 Under 30” and the Arab America Foundation’s “40 Under 40.”

Her critically acclaimed memoir, Starstruck: A Memoir of Astrophysics and Finding Light in the Dark, was featured by The TODAY Show, NPR, and has been selected by Apple Books, Book Riot, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and more as a Summer 2023 Must-Read. She lives in Berkeley, CA with her partner, Taylor, and their dog, Comet.