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Mona Kanaan
Professor, Senior Fellow of HEA

Profile

Biography

Mona is a Professor in Applied Health Research & Statistics and Senior Fellow of HEA. Mona was the Programme Leader for the Postgraduate certificate in Health Research and Statistics and is currently the Director of Post Graduate Education and Chair  of the Post Graduate Teaching Committee at the Department. 

Mona has worked on statistical modelling of childhood infectious diseases, analysis of randomised controlled trials in the health and social sciences including cluster randomised trials and stepped wedge trials, and spatial statistics. She has published extensively in health and social sciences and statistical journals. She has been involved in the analysis of datasets from both the UK and internationally (Lebanon, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Syria, and South Africa) with applications ranging from maternity outcomes to MMR vaccines, tobacco control, reablement and criminal justice data.

She also serves on a number of data monitoring committees and trial/study steering committees and has served on an NIHR regional funding committee and NIHR Health Services & Delivery Research Committee. She is an associate editor of Ethnicity and Health, Deputy Statistics and Methodology Editor of Addiction.

Mona is currently a member of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) Council and a member of the RSS Medical Section (and has previously acted as its Chair) and led on the Statistics workstream of the NIHR Methodology Incubator. Mona will serve on the NIHR Advanced Fellowship Committee from April 2024.

Mona trained initially as a Mathematician at the American University of Beirut supported by a Hariri Foundation Scholarship. She then moved on to study Mathematical Statistics at the University of Cambridge supported by the Karim Rida Said Foundation. Mona then completed her PhD studies in Spatial Statistics at the Open University supported by an Open University studentship and an Overseas Research Studentship Award. This was followed by a post-doctoral post at the Open University working with Prof. Paddy Farrington on parameter estimation for infectious diseases. Mona then took an Assistant Professor in Biostatistics position at the Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut before joining the University of York.

Follow Mona @MonaKanaan3 or at Linkedin

Qualifications

  • BSc in Mathematics (with distinction), American University of Beirut
  • Postgraduate degree in Mathematical Statistics, University of Cambridge
  • PhD (statistics), The Open University

Departmental roles

Research

Overview

Mona's research interests include health statistics in general with particular focus on randomised trials, cluster randomised trials, stepped wedge design, spatial statistics and statistical methods for the analysis of infectious diseases specifically measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). Mona’s work includes trials on control of tobacco use, improving communication skills among doctors and awareness of patient safety for doctors in training, empowerment of pregnant women, and breathing techniques for lung cancer patients.   

Mona's research expertise is in Applied Health Research Statistics. Specifically, she is interested in the analysis of health and social related statistics. To this effect, she usually leads on the statistical aspects in the design of studies in general. She has expertise in various study design including parallel randomised trials, cluster randomised trials, stepped wedge design, spatial statistics and observational studies.

Mona has co-supervised a PhD student who explored the role of social isolation and loneliness in coronary heart disease and stroke participants of the ELSA study. The work of the student attracted national and international coverage. One of the papers that they co-authored also received the best paper of the year from the prestigious Heart journal.

Mona is the founder of the International Conference on the Stepped Wedge Design. Mona was the Programme Chair for the RSS International Conference in Harrogate 2023.

Projects

Current projects

  • CLASS III: Children learning about second-hand smoke : A  cluster randomised controlled trial
  • TYPPEX: Tailoring evidence-based psychological therapy for people with a common mental disorder including Psychotic Experiences study
  • Reporting of Intra-Cluster Correlation Coefficients in Stepped-Wedge Cluster Randomised Trials

Completed projects include:

Research group(s)

Supervision

Mona has supervised eight PhD students to successful completion and is currently co-supervising four PhD students at various stages in their research programme. Interested PhD students with proposals that have a substantive/advanced quantitative element in a health-related setting are welcome to contact Mona.

Mona is interested in quantitative research related to tobacco control research, loneliness and social isolation, under-researched and under-represented populations.  For those interested in methodological research within health sciences, Mona particularly welcomes proposals related to stepped wedge (cluster randomised) trials and application of spatial statistics to health-related fields. 

Keywords: Stepped Wedge, Trials, Cluster Randomised, Epidemiology, Surveys, Spatial Statistics, Tobacco Control, Loneliness and Social Isolation

Mona also acts as an external examiner to PhD theses.

Sucessfully completed PhD Supervision

  • Aishwarya Lakshmi Vidyasagaran (Co-supervisor with Kamran Siddiqi)
  • Dina Jankovic (Co-supervisor with Laura Bojke)
  • Nahid Batarfi (Co-supervisor with Karl Atkin)
  • Francesco Ramponi (CHE student: co-supervisor with Gerry Richardson)
  • Nicole Valtorta (Co-supervisor with Barbara Hanratty and Simon Gilbody)
  • Radha Shukla (Co-supervisor with Kamran Siddiqi)
  • John Ratcliffe (Co-supervisor with Paul Galdas)
  • Zainab Kidwai (Co-supervisor with Kamran Siddiqi)

Current PhD Supervisees

  • Abdullah Sonnet (Co-supervisor with Kamran Siddiqi)
  • Helen Recchia (Co-supervisor with Paul Galdas and Helen Bedford)
  • Huda Sarwar (Co-supervisor with Claire Carswell and Shaista Rasul)
  • Shushan Li (Co-supervisor with Kamran Siddiqi)

Thesis Advisory Panel Membership (TAP)

  • (Completed) Member of the TAP group for Kholod AlOtaibi (Supervised by Patrick Doherty and Alexander Harrison)
  • (Completed) Member of the TAP group for Georgios Nikiliadis (Supervised by Marta Soares and Stephen Palmer)
  • (Completed) Member of the TAP group for Omara Dogar (Supervised by Trevor Sheldon and Kamran Siddiqi)

Teaching

Postgraduate

Module leader for:

Ex-Module leader for:

Ex-Co-module leader for:

Publications

Full publications list

External activities

Memberships

Editorial duties

Invited talks and conferences

  • "An introduction to spectral analysis of spatial point-lattice processes", invited talk presented at the Statistical Computing Section of the Royal Statistical Society

Mona Kanaan

Contact details

Dr Mona Kanaan
Professor, Senior Fellow of HEA

Tel: 01904 32(1375)

@MonaKanaan3