Anatomy is one of the oldest medical fields. Being passionate about anatomy and aiming to pursue an academic career at the same time require obtaining a PhD in the field. The field of anatomy research is very broad and have many subfields including: classical dissection-based research, anatomy education, digital and physical 3D modelling, and tissue engineering.
The tissue engineering field is by far, the most exciting anatomy-related field. It could potentially help solve many current health issues. It also lacks the presence of anatomy-oriented researchers and scientist. Therefore, I chose to combine my anatomical knowledge with the technology and methods of tissue engineering to participate in this advancing field of research, which lead me to contact Jennifer after a very strong recommendation by A/Prof Quentin Fogg.
My experience in the Paxton Lab has been wonderful. The friendly atmosphere, the available resources, and the research opportunities and potential are just some examples of what I loved about this lab. Jennifer trained me and taught me throughout the first year of my PhD. This gave me enough confidence to become independent and own my project. During my thesis writing up time, Jennifer was always there to advice and give detailed feedback. This helped developing my writing skills considerably. I could easily say that writing up a PhD thesis could be the most stressful time of a PhD if you don’t have an attentive supervisor, luckily, I had Jennifer.
After I graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a PhD in tissue engineering, I moved back home to Saudi Arabia and worked as a lecturer of anatomy at Unayzah College of Medicine, Qassim University. I am currently head of the anatomy unit and a member of the scientific research council in the College. Founding a centre for anatomy and tissue engineering research and establishing international collaborations (possibly with Jennifer!) are my next career goals.
