Sabeeha Sabanali Merchant (born 1959) is a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

She joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1978 and became interested in the chemistry of living cells whilst working under the supervision of Glenn Chambliss.

She joined the Enzyme Institute to work as Henry A. Lardy's secretary, but he encouraged her to apply for graduate programs.

During her doctorate Merchant purified chloroplast coupling factor 1, a component of the pathway that uses ATP synthase to synthesize adenosine triphosphate.

[3] During this time she began to read in the library, investigating role of metals in the regulation of photosynthetic electron transport in Chlamydomonas.

[9] Merchant showed that the RNA of cytochrome c6, an iron-based protein, is only present in copper deficient cells.

[3] In her lab experiments are performed in rigorously cleaned glassware, using hydrochloric acid to remove surface metal ions.

[12][13] She was awarded the National Academy of Sciences Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal for her contributions to the assembly of metalloenzymes.