Researcher spotlight Saleyha Ahsan

Healthcare in armed conflict is one of the most urgent humanitarian challenges of our time – yet, as a focus of academic research, it has often existed without a clear home. Dr Saleyha Ahsan, PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge, is working to change that.

Outskirts of Nablus in 2002. Photo taken by Saleyha during a 6-month stay there as a medical volunteer and filmmaker (Article 17- Doctors in Palestine distributed by British Council). The ambulance was blocked by an IDF patrol.

Outskirts of Nablus in 2002. Photo taken by Saleyha during a 6-month stay there as a medical volunteer and filmmaker (Article 17- Doctors in Palestine distributed by British Council). The ambulance was blocked by an IDF patrol.

Saleyha's research investigates the impact of attacks on healthcare systems during armed conflict and how those disruptions contribute to forced migration. Focusing on displaced people in Jordan with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of cancer, Saleyha is exploring how the damage or destruction of healthcare facilities affects decisions to move, and what that movement means for access to treatment and long-term outcomes.

“I’m trying to understand what people do when healthcare is no longer available. Do they stay where they are and risk worsening health? Or do they move to another area, or across a border, because they have no other option?”

Her research focuses on people with cancer, both because it is a relatively neglected area in humanitarian settings and because cancer care offers a way of seeing how health systems function more broadly.

“Cancer is a sentinel pathology. If you’ve got cancer care sorted in your health system, it means other things that are far less complex are probably also okay. But if you haven’t got cancer care stable, it probably means other areas, such as Emergency Medicine, are also not functioning.”

An interdisciplinary approach

Saleyha’s research is shaped by the breadth of her professional background. Her career has spanned clinical medicine, military service, and frontline journalism.

She has reported from conflict zones including Palestine and Kashmir, served as part of the British Army in Bosnia, and worked as a doctor in the UK, Syria and Libya.

Her academic journey at Cambridge has also crossed disciplines, beginning in the Department of Sociology and continuing in the Department of Engineering, where she utilises systems engineering tools to inform her research.

Saleyha is part of the International Health Systems Group, based at the Department of Engineering and supervised by Dr Tom Bashford, with Professor John Clarkson as Faculty Advisor. Her research is co-supervised by Professor James Wood, Professor Maria Iacovou, and Dr Charlotte Hammer, drawing on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives spanning systems engineering, epidemiology, and global health security.

“If I hadn’t spent time in sociology, I wouldn’t understand migration theory the way I do,” she says. “Working in engineering has given me a new way of looking at these problems. It’s a structured approach that helps make sense of complex challenges.”

The result is a research approach that draws on multiple perspectives to understand how people respond when healthcare is disrupted by conflict, and what those responses reveal about the wider system.

Research as a tool for change

Saleyha didn’t always view academic research as a route to change. Coming from journalism and frontline medical work, she initially saw academic publishing as something separate from practical action. That perspective has shifted during her time at Cambridge.

Over the course of her PhD, she began to see how data, objectivity, and published evidence could shape not only policy but also public understanding and response.

"I’m not a traditional academic. I’ve had many bylines in mainstream media, but hardly any in academia. I used to think journalism could make change happen. But now I’m learning how important empirical research-based evidence and data are, especially when trying to shape policy."

Following a CRASSH Healthcare in Conflict network event in 2024, she co-authored a report for the World Health Organization and contributed to a set of formal recommendations – including the proposal for a UN Special Rapporteur on healthcare in conflict and the inclusion of humanitarian and human rights content in medical and nursing education.

Creating a home for the field

Despite its urgency and complexity, healthcare in conflict has lacked a defined academic space. In recent years, this need has only grown, with a documented rise in attacks on healthcare workers and facilities.

In 2023, Saleyha co-founded the Healthcare in Conflict Network at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) with Dr Charlotte Hammer (Centre for the Study of Existential Risk). The network offers a platform for interdisciplinary research and dialogue, bringing together researchers from diverse fields, including medicine, law, public health, international relations, and beyond.

"The CRASSH network offered me a home. I couldn’t find a home within medicine or global health. Finally, I thought, it’s probably a blessing that it doesn’t exist already, because now I can set something up."

It also serves as a platform for events, supporting workshops and panel discussions that explore how different disciplines can work together to address the complexities of conflict and healthcare. Saleyha describes it as an “incubator” for ideas that link academic work with public policy and engagement.

Saleyha and co-founders celebrate the launch of the Healthcare in Conflict Research Network.

CRASSH Healthcare in Conflict at Cambridge Festival, Delivering Education in Armed Conflict and telling the Story. Left to right: Professor Pauline Rose, Dr Saleyha Ahsan, Dr Eolene Boyd-MacMillan, Natalia Popova, Ian Pannell

Picture by Guilhem Baker, Consensus Development workshop, CRASSH HCiC, Engineering Design Centre, IHSG, West Hub Event grant funded.

Building a community of action

Saleyha is also using the network to connect with those outside the university, bringing in voices from humanitarian organisations, the media, law, and the military. In May 2025, she convened a collaborative workshop, funded by the West Hub Small Grants Programme, to explore shared challenges in healthcare during conflict.

To help participants from such diverse backgrounds work effectively together, the workshop used systems thinking tools developed by researchers at the Department of Engineering. Originally designed to improve healthcare systems, these methods help map complex problems and identify practical points of intervention.

"It could have been confusing and thus less productive without it [systems thinking tools]. People came from such different disciplines and lived experiences. But the systems approach gave us structure—and that made it work."

Picture by Guilhem Baker, film screening and Q&A with Oscar-nominated executive producer and former Channel 4 News editor, Ben de Pear.

Picture by Guilhem Baker, film screening and Q&A with Oscar-nominated executive producer and former Channel 4 News editor, Ben de Pear.

Further workshops are planned. Together, they reflect Saleyha’s commitment to building not just a field of research, but a community of practice, bringing together diverse perspectives to confront the complex challenges of healthcare delivery in armed conflict.