Early Career Interview: Aya Mousa

Please tell us about your career history to date I obtained a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree (first class Hons) from the University of Auckland in New Zealand in 2011. I graduated with the highest grade point averages in both my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, receiving the Senior Scholar Award (undergraduate BHSc, 2011) and Honours Prize (postgraduate BHSc Hons, 2012). I then worked as a teaching associate in epidemiology, biostatistics and public health (2013), before relocating to Australia on a scholarship to pursue a PhD in clinical sciences exploring the role of vitamin D in cardiometabolic diseases. My PhD was conferred in April 2018 from Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), after which I received an early career biomedical research fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia commencing in 2019. Despite completing my PhD less than 1 year ago, I have authored more than 30 publications in distinguished journals. My research experience, coupled with collaborations I have formed with clinical leaders and experts has allowed me to possess a unique combination of skills across the research continuum (biomedical, epidemiological, clinical, public health and translation) that I will utilize and build on in my career moving forward. Currently, I am employed as an academic research fellow at Monash University where I am supervising PhD and Honours students and building my independent research team investigating interventions for the prevention of cardiometabolic diseases.