PhD Student

Physical Activity Epidemiology

Current work and interests

Mineli is a PhD student in the Physical Activity Epidemiology group, supervised by Dr Soren Brage and fully funded by a Trinity Hall studentship. Her research focuses on methodological approaches to understanding physical activity behaviours and their relationship with cardiometabolic risk across populations. She develops and applies analytical methods to accelerometer-derived physical activity measures within large-scale cohort studies, including the South Asia Biobank. Her work examines how differences in measurement and behaviour influence the interpretation of physical activity across diverse populations, with a focus on improving comparability and validity.

Through this, she investigates how socio-economic, behavioural and environmental factors contribute to health inequalities, particularly in relation to conditions such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. She is interested in identifying pathways for prevention and translating  epidemiological evidence into policy-relevant outputs.

Outside of research, she is a Cambridge University Tennis Blue and a member of the Cambridge Women’s Cricket squad.

Background and experience

Mineli completed an MPhil in Population Health Sciences (Health Data Science track) at the University of Cambridge as a Churchill College and Cambridge Trust Scholar. Her MPhil dissertation focused on predictive modelling of recurrent infections.

She previously obtained a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science from the University of Warwick, graduating 4th in her cohort, including a placement year at Pfizer within Medical Affairs focusing on antimicrobial resistance and stewardship.

Her research experience spans academia, industry, and policy-facing environments, including roles at the University of Oxford, Amsterdam UMC, and Pfizer. Alongside her academic work, she has been actively involved in community and outreach initiatives, including volunteering within Integrated Care Systems to support health checks in underserved populations and leading a social enterprise aimed at reducing socio-economic barriers for school students.

Publications and Links

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/minelicooray

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-2998-0183