Dr Priyia Pusparajah trained as a paediatrician, however, her passion for teaching and research led her to leave the hospital environment to join Monash University in July 2012. She obtained her undergraduate qualification from University of Malaya and worked as a houseman and medical officer in various hospitals in Malaysia before moving on to train as a pediatrician in KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Singapore. It was during her advanced pediatric training in neonatology that she discovered a passion for academics and embarked on a path that led to joining Monash University Malaysia.

Dr Priyia is a passionate medical educator who has developed many innovative classes for the medical program. She has a deep interest in foundational sciences as the basis of safe and effective clinical practice and has created a range of classes for both pre-clinical and clinical students integrating basic and clinical sciences. She coordinates Physiology and Clinical Skills as well as the multi disciplinary active learning Concept Consolidation sessions which anchor all learning blocks in the pre -clinical years. She received the Malaysian Society of Pharmacology and Physiology Teachers Prize for Physiology in 2016, and a Commendation in the Pro Vice Chancellor Awards for Education in Excellence in the field of Innovations in Education in 2019.

Dr Priyia’s research interests are bioprospecting for natural substances with potential therapeutic clinical applications and also the microbiome. She is a section leader of the Clinical Microbiome section of the Microbiome and Bioresource Strength in the Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She is particularly interested in seeking potential novel therapeutic modalities for multi drug resistant organisms from mangrove derived Streptomyces, and is currently doing a PhD on this topic.