Mona Kanaan

Professor Mona Kanaan is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a leading figure in applied health research and statistics at the University of York's Department of Health Sciences. Previously serving as Programme Leader for the Postgraduate Certificate in Health Research and Statistics, she currently holds the role of Director of Postgraduate Education and chairs the Postgraduate Teaching Committee. Her career spans academic leadership at the American University of Beirut and methodological innovation in global health studies.

• Education: BSc in Mathematics (American University of Beirut), Postgraduate in Mathematical Statistics (University of Cambridge), PhD in Spatial Statistics (The Open University).

Mona specializes in statistical modeling of childhood infectious diseases, cluster randomized trials, stepped wedge designs, and spatial statistics applied to health and social sciences. Her work spans international collaborations in Lebanon, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Syria, and South Africa, addressing maternal health, vaccine efficacy, tobacco control, reablement interventions, and criminal justice data. She founded the International Conference on the Stepped Wedge Design and serves on the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) Council and NIHR Advanced Fellowship Committee.

Her recent publications focus on tobacco control policies in LMICs, stepped wedge trial methodologies, and loneliness in aging populations. She has supervised 9 PhD students to completion and currently co-supervises 4 more, emphasizing quantitative approaches in health research.

• Scientific Awards:
  • Senior Fellow of HEA
  • Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society
  • Volunteer with Statistics without Borders
  • Best Paper of the Year from the Heart Journal (2023)
  • Programme Chair, RSS International Conference 2023