Yasmeen Alfaraj

Yasmeen Alfaraj founded NextSet Materials to develop and distribute a recyclable thermoset plastic for the materials manufacturing industry.

As a high school student, Alfaraj participated in the Society for Science International Science and Engineering Fair in 2015, went on to study chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, and received her PhD in chemistry at MIT. 

While at MIT, she was an MIT-Pillar AI Collective Fellow focused on designing sustainable plastics. Her research led her to engineer a drop-in additive that makes traditionally unrecyclable thermoset plastics — found in aerospace and electronic materials — recyclable. This breakthrough product offers sustainable solution for factories to integrate into their process without requiring an overhaul of their existing processes. 

Alfaraj continues to grow and expand NextSet Materials’ efforts in creating the “next generation of thermoset plastics,” and was a Forbes’ 2026 30 under 30 honoree.