"I am proud of what I have reached today because first, I am a woman and second, I am Lebanese, and nothing is impossible. We just have to believe in what we can achieve because space can accommodate everyone's aspirations", said Dr. Rana Nicolas summarizing her career in Physics that started in the Lebanese University and ended by reaching the finals in the "Astronauts" program aired on Dubai TV in cooperation with the British BBC channel.

Dr. Rana holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from the Lebanese University - Faculty of Sciences (Branch 2), a Master’s degree in Physics from the American University of Beirut (AUB) and a PhD in Nanotechnology from the University of Technology of Troyes, France. She is currently a lecturer at the Lebanese American University (LAU) in Beirut, a researcher at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), a member of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), and a regular reviewer in “Plasmonics” and “Nanospectroscopy” journals.

Among the 500 candidates who applied for the "Astronauts" program under the supervision of the Canadian astronaut "Chris Hadfield", Dr. Rana was selected among the "12 participants", reached the final episode and competed for the title with Mishaal Ashemimry of Saudi Arabia and Mohammed Ahly, of the United Arab Emirates and winner of the title.

On this experience, Dr. Rana says: “I had a dream to become an astronaut and I believe in the possibility of achieving my goal and my participation in the “Astronauts” is the first step. My colleagues and I have proven that we, as Arab women, are able to excel, confront and engage in Science. The 4 months of shooting between Dubai, the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia and the NASA's Kennedy Space Center in the United States, gave us the opportunity to discover our capabilities, through which we experienced the life of the astronaut as we were indeed outside the planet Earth.”

Dr. Rana intends to present a series of lectures and workshops in a number of schools to encourage male and female students to specialize in physics and space, considering that physics is a flexible applied course based on theories that facilitated progress and development around the world.