Susan Buthaina Sinnott is professor and head of materials science and engineering at Pennsylvania State University.

[3][4] She moved to Iowa State University for her graduate studies, and earned her doctoral degree in physical chemistry in 1993.

[3] After graduating Sinnott moved to the United States Naval Research Laboratory where she worked on surface chemistry.

[3] Sinnott was promoted to Professor at the University of Florida in 2005, where she led projects on cyber infrastructure and quantum theory.

[3][8][9] Sinnott's research involves the development of computational methods to understand the electronic and atomic structure of materials.