Maissa Azab is the Executive Director of NAMES Network as of March 2017. Prior to that, she was the Secretary of the Network since its inception in January 2006. Maissa strives to reinforce the Network’s vision put forward by the Founding Members and developed by the Board of Directors through time. Her mission is to grow the Network through the development of meaningful and useful services and projects for all member categories, in addition to the growing collaboration with other regional science engagement entities and international sister networks.

Additionally, Maissa Azab is the Head of the Cultural Outreach Publications Unit (COPU) at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA), since 2013, after leading the Publications Team and the BA Planetarium Science Center (PSC) since 2006. Maissa graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Alexandria University in 1999; in 2004, she joined the PSC. Shortly hereafter, she had the initiative of launching a science popularization publication, leading to the establishment of SCIplanet magazine, both printed and online, of which she is the Editor-in-Chief.