Professor Alghannam’s research broadly spans topics from flow in porous media to friction and earthquakes. She is particularly interested in understanding how fluids interact with faults and fractures in the subsurface. An application area she has worked on extensively is induced seismicity—a central issue in the development of environmentally safe and sustainable subsurface energy technologies. At KAUST, Dr. Alghannam is expanding her investigations of fluid–fault interactions to new application areas, such as enhanced geothermal systems and nonvolcanic tremors. Her other interests include the physics of granular media and multiscale modeling of friction.​