Nabila Aghanim is an Algerian observational cosmologist whose research concerns the interpretation of the cosmic microwave background and the light it sheds on galaxy formation and evolution,^[1] and the structure of galaxy filaments and the warm–hot intergalactic medium.^[2] She works in France as a director of research for the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), associated with the Institut d'astrophysique spatiale at the University of Paris-Saclay.

Aghanim is originally from Algiers. After completing a Diplôme d'études supérieures in Algeria,^[3] at the University of Science and Technology Houari Boumediene,^[4] she traveled to France for doctoral research in astrophysics at Paris Diderot University.^[3][4] Her 1996 dissertation, Contribution a l'etude des anisotropies secondaires du fond de rayonnement cosmologique, was directed by Jean-Loup Puget.^[5]

Aghanim's postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley was cut short after six months by difficulty obtaining a visa to stay in the US for longer, because of the Algerian Civil War. Instead, after continuing her research at the National Centre for Space Studies in France,^[3] she became a CNRS researcher in 1999.^[3][4] She was promoted to director of research in 2010.^[3] In 2016, she was named as the director of the Observatoire des sciences de l'univers [fr] of the University of Paris-Saclay.^[6]

Aghanim received the CNRS Bronze Medal in 2005,^[4] and the CNRS Silver Medal in 2017.^[1][4] She was the 2022 winner of the Huy Duong Bui grand prize [fr] of the French Academy of Sciences.^[7]