Rasha Khayyat, Ph.D is a microbiologist and a virologist with a background in pharmacy. During her Ph.D research at the University Paris-Sud, she studied rotavirus, in particular the mechanisms underlying its interaction with the host cell and its entry mechanism into the cell.

Since 2010, she is an assistant professor at the Medicine and Health Sciences Faculty of An-Najah National University in Nablus, Palestine.  She teaches undergraduates and graduates medical sciences students, virology, immunology, parasitology, microbiology and biotherapy. 

 As a researcher, Dr. KHAYYAT is familiar with proposal writing and project submission offering her possibilities for grants. She has a wide national and international network that enables her to participate in research on Enterobacteria and Shigella antibiotic resistance in Palestine, avian Chlamydia detection and genotyping in Palestinian poultry, risk of infection due to hand contamination among Palestinian school children. In Sep. 2013, she obtained Al-Maqdisi funding (Partenariat Hubert Curien (PHC) franco-palestinien) to study the prevalence of virus responsible for diarrhoea in children in Palestine. She could as well obtain, with two other colleagues of her, a grant from the Palestinian Council for Research to work on nano-antibiotics. In addition, she is co-supervising medicine students in their research projects.

During the academic year 2013-2014, Dr. KHAYYAT was designated as head of division of microbiology and immunology where she had to coordinate the academic and research activities at the division’s level. During the same year, she was a monitor of the International Federation for Medical Students Associations -Nablus IFMSA-Nablus. She mainly supervised and oriented the medicine students’ activities and projects at both national and international levels.

Since August 2014 , Dr. KHAYYAT is in charge for the coordination of scholarships office at An-Najah University. During her work as a coordinator, she implemented the Erasmus Mundus projects granted to consortia where An-Najah University is a partner and interacts with the project coordinators during the different phases of the projects. She also supported applications for E+ projects where she participated in planning for the desired activities and helped in drafting and revising the submitted proposals.

Dr. KHAYYAT is committed to the Palestinian society, this is clearly reflected as being a member of Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees “PARC”, a member of Palestinian forum for medical research “PFMR” and both a founder and a member of Palestinian graduates from France association “Al-Rafic”.