MyGlasgow News

Epidemiologist Niveen Abu-Rmeileh, a former University of Glasgow PhD scholar, has featured in a recent edition of The Lancet and been described as "a rising star in the MIddle East"

Niveen is Director of the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University in the West Bank.

Many of the people she studies live in the Gaza Strip. “Palestinians from the West Bank are not allowed to visit Gaza unless they work with an international agency or the UN”, she says. So she can't herself go there to supervise or check the progress of field work. “The last time I visited Gaza was in 2000.”

Adding personal frustration to the professional is that Abu-Rmeileh lives not in the West Bank but in Jerusalem; twice a day, going to and from her office, she has to negotiate an Israeli military checkpoint.

Niveen was born and schooled in Jerusalem along with four brothers and three sisters. The status conferred by work in science and medicine made it a natural career choice, she says; but at the time she finished her secondary education there was still no medical school in which she could enrol. She trained as a medical technician, found a job at Birzeit University as a research assistant to a doctor studying diabetes, and then did a masters degree in public health.

With funding from the British Council, she then went to the University of Glasgow to do a PhD. Her original plan was to study obesity in Palestinians, with the fieldwork being bookended by an initial period in Glasgow for planning and a final period back there for analysis and writing. The outbreak of the second Intifada scuppered this idea. Instead, with the help of Glasgow's Professor of General Practice and Primary Care, Graham Watt, she spent her whole 3 years in Scotland doing a study of obesity among Glaswegians. She enjoyed it. “I used to go hiking and hill walking, and I even did most of the West Highland Way Race.”

Niveen already spoke English when she arrived in Glasgow. “But everyone was doubting that I would understand the Glaswegian accent”, she recalls. She managed, and even herself picked up elements (now vanished) of the Scots brogue. “It's my excuse to go back to Scotland”, she says. “I have to finish the rest of the race, and renew my accent.” Indeed, she admits that research facilities in the UK did tempt her to stay on. “But at the same time I wanted to come back and share my research experience with my colleagues.” Abu-Rmeileh also missed her family. So her home won, and she returned. But she has maintained the networks she established in the UK, and added to them.

To read the full profile of Niveen Abu-Rmeileh, visit:

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61477-X/fulltext

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First published: 9 September 2014