The sky might not be the limit
Academic Spotlight: Professor Mona Nasser, Director of the Plymouth Institute of Health and Care Research (PIHR)
The photo was taken as part of a skydive to simulate the description of a trained skydive used by Roscomos. The skydiver is Mona Nasser and the camera was recorded by Andrew Pugsley.
“If a billionaire said they would pay for me to go into space, that would be amazing. But I wouldn’t feel comfortable just being a space tourist – it would have to be to do something meaningful.
It might seem odd to begin the profile of a dental researcher with a quote about space travel. But then, as anyone who knows Mona Nasser will be aware, she is no ordinary dental researcher. Among her role models she lists Maryam Mirzakhani, who became the only female winner of one of mathematics’ most famous prizes, the Fields Medal. Then there is arguably TV’s most recognisable female fictional astrophysicist, Stargate SG-1’s Samantha Carter. Mona has successfully channelled elements of both and others into her career to this point. And without trivialising matters, it is genuinely possible to perceive her future research endeavours stretching to infinity – and beyond.
While she may not currently be emulating Carter’s travels at warp speed, Mona’s life – both professional and personal – is lived at something of a frenetic pace. Whether she is talking about her work, or indulging in her hobbies of flying or skydiving, everything is done at speed. If you’re fortunate enough to spend any time in her company – or, for that matter, planning to attend her
Inaugural Professorial Lecture
– the general advice would be to buckle up. If you can keep up with her, however, you will unquestionably be caught up in her obvious enthusiasm for her chosen subjects, and for life in general.
“From an early age, I was always doing a lot of things at the same time,” she says, when I jokingly pass comment on the fact she talks ‘quite’ quickly. “The way I see it, talking quickly is the only way for my mouth to keep up with my brain.”
While she may not have started her research career at the age of six, Mona says she knew at that point that she wanted to be a scientist. Many of the paths she continues to follow to this day were laid down during her childhood. Brought up in a very intellectual family, the names of renowned philosophers were bandied about in general conversation. Her early years were split between time in her native Iran and in Germany as a result of her father’s work. It allowed Mona to learn about different cultures, but also to understand the huge range of future opportunities that might be available to her.
Growing up, I can remember there was cartoon series showing scientists as children. It then had them talking about what they achieved later. I perhaps didn’t fully understand everything a scientist did, but it really caught my imagination.
This formative period led to the nurturing of passions for both maths and physics, even if the latter led to some frustration when teachers simply provided the answers to her questions rather than explaining how they reached their conclusions. However, when the time came to decide what to study at university, Mona – now back in Iran – opted for dentistry as the subject was held in high esteem. However, this was also not without its frustrations.
At the end of one particular day, she was with a patient suffering from pain caused by their dentures. While her supervisors quarrelled over which treatment might work best, Mona offered an alternative having spoken with the patient and listened to their views. “It was a different time,” she says. “But I was told in no uncertain terms that the patient wasn’t the expert, and I needed to convince them that the course of action which my supervisors had finally agreed on was the right one. It has something that stayed with me, although hopefully not in the way they expected.”
From that initial Doctorate in Dental Surgery, which she achieved in 2005, Mona’s thirst for knowledge seemingly still requires some quenching. An MSc in Dental Public Health; a second doctorate, this time in Health Services Research and Clinical Epidemiology; a postgraduate certificate in Clinical Education; the Interactive Space Course 20 with the International Space University, achieved thanks to a partial scholarship from the European Space Agency; started an MSc in Astrophysics (the influence of Samantha Carter, played in the Stargate series by Amanda Tapping, endures).
All of these are taken with a view to expanding her own expertise, and in areas she is passionate about. But there is also another motive – that previously stated quest for 'meaningful' science. It stems in part back to those physics lessons, and her engagement with others in a variety of scientific disciplines since. A genuine desire to ensure they are not only able to find the answers to their questions, but that they are asking the right type of questions in the first place.
This was encouraged through her work with Cochrane, a charitable organisation formed to facilitate evidence-based choices about health interventions, where she co-founded – and continues to lead – the Cochrane Priority Setting Methods Group.
“Health research can obviously yield huge benefits, both for health professionals and their patients,” Mona says. “But so often research is done without the joined-up thinking needed to understand how it will be applied, or how it can be incorporated into policy. That is the basis of my work with Cochrane, and much of my research here in Plymouth has been guided by those same principles.”
The plaudits for such a way of thinking, as common sense an approach as it might appear, did not come overnight. In the early days, many people questioned whether an approach of this nature was really required, given it would represent a fundamental change in the process of carrying out health research. However, her impact case study for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) was praised by the REF panel for its reach and significance. And the breadth of global organisations that Mona has been invited to work with – including the United States Government and the World Health Organization – is testament to its ever-growing impact.
It is through such work that Mona became involved in work with the European Space Agency although, again, it wasn’t perhaps through conventional means. During one period of annual leave, Mona decided to go to a space conference and met several people working with the organisation. They wanted to do a systematic review of existing research on ionising radiation and asked if she could help. This being Mona, the answer was obvious: Yes.
“We started work on a programme looking at the impact of ionising radiation on people participating in space flight,” she says. “We then worked with the ESA’s machine learning team to develop algorithms, and then did crowd sourcing to get people involved in the work as well. It is hugely exciting and rewarding.”
This leads to an obvious question of whether Mona herself – considering her role models, studies and research interest – wants to go to space. It turns out she has previously applied. For now though, she is concentrating on research that she hopes will help others involved in space programmes. And, as previously discovered, any mission of her own would need to pass the 'meaningful' test.
That doesn’t mean she hasn’t completely given up on following Samantha Carter into the skies. Far from it, in fact. Mona is a fully qualified pilot who has flown everywhere from Plymouth to New Zealand and Canada. She is a fully qualified skydiver with more than 300 jumps behind her. She has even tried her hand at aerobatics. “When I decided to come to Plymouth, I actually had a couple of excellent options on the table,” she says. “I checked to see which of them had an airport nearby and, at the time, Plymouth ticked that box. I moved before my job started so I could enrol at flight school.”
Mona’s time in the skies, in her own words, helps her to cope in high pressure situations. But when it comes to her research focuses, it almost feels – to coin a phrase – like the sky might not be the ultimate limit. In addition to the aforementioned initiatives, she has recently gained funding from the MPS Foundation to assess and then develop ways to manage dental anxiety. The project will see her working with researchers from the University’s Transtechnology Research Group and colleagues at the South Devon and Torbay NHS Hospital Trust. She is also exploring the potential use of robots in dentistry, and working with experts in cyber security at the University to understand any issues that might create. These topics might, once again, seem to have a loose connection at best. But Mona has a typically swift response.
I have always built my career following my curiosity and where I think the most important questions lie,” she says. “For people outside of my head, it may look like I study a lot of different things. But in my head, they are all linked as they are all about exploring the methodologies of research and how it can be applied. I can’t see a day when I change that.
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