What’s your name and where are you from?
Hi! My name is Rayane Haddadj, I’m from Paris, France.
Where are you working and who are your supervisors?
I am currently based at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), in the Department of Public Health and Nursing, located in Trondheim, Norway. My main supervisor is Professor Paul Jarle Mork from NTNU. I also worked under the supervision of Professor Kerstin Bach and currently under the supervision of Dr. Anne Lovise Nordstoga, both from NTNU, and Professor Jasper Schipperijn from Southern Denmark University.
What’s your educational background?
I hold both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Sport Sciences, with a specialization in Adapted Physical Activity and Health, from Sorbonne-Paris-Nord University, France.
What was the last professional or educational activity you carried out before joining LABDA, and how did you decide join LABDA?
Before joining the LABDA project, I worked as a research intern at the French Agency of Public Health (Santé Publique France). During my time there, I processed physical activity data recorded with accelerometers during the Esteban study (2014–2016), a national, representative cross-sectional study.
What’s your PhD topic?
My PhD research explores the relationship between movement behaviours – such as physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep – and musculoskeletal health. I aim to understand how device-measured movement behaviours are linked to different musculoskeletal conditions by analysing large-scale population-based data. A key aspect of my work involves close collaboration with the Computer Science department at NTNU, where we use machine learning classifiers to accurately categorize time spent in various activities and postures, such as walking, sitting and sleeping.
What would you like to achieve with your research work?
My broader research interests lie in understanding how wearables and behavioural data can be used to predict and prevent chronic diseases and poor health outcomes.
What’s your role within LABDA?
I am actively involved in the Career Coordination Committee within the LABDA project, working alongside Jaime (PhD fellow) and Jasper (Principal Investigator). Our role is to manage training, supervision, and secondments, as well as to identify relevant training needs among the fellows in the consortium.
Can you tell us one personal thing about you that is weird and/or funny?
Despite living in a very cold and snowy country, I must admit that I have never skied in my life (though I hope this will no longer be true by the time you read this).
