Aya obtained her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and was employed at Harvard University as a post­doctoral fellow. She is a mechanical engineer with a specific interest in applying technical principles in the medical field.

In 1999 Aya made a career switch towards consultancy and was employed by a large consultancy firm, PNO Consultants. At this company, she was the leader of the “European Grant team” and was involved in the preparation of numerous successful FP5 – FP7 research grant proposals on behalf of her clients.

Aya became partner of Yellow Research in 2014. Her focus is on individual research and training grants with particular attention for ERC and MSCA grants  as well as Talentscheme grants funded by the Dutch NWO. She is active in training of individual researchers (from PhD students to ERC AdG candidates) as well as support staff at universities.  In addition, she provides consultancy services focussing on pre-screening of draft proposals to be submitted to the above mentioned funding programmes including assessing evaluation criteria.

Since more than 10 years Aya is regularly invited by the European Commission as expert to evaluate FP5-FP8 research proposals in her area of expertise.