Hi! My name is Amialya Durairaj, but you can call me Mia. I specialize in writing about health and caregiving.
My 15+ years of professional writing experience have taught me to marry research with engaging stories to influence my readers. (But don’t just take my word for it— read my testimonials!)
My writing has been published in The Washington Post, Yahoo! Life, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition, and the World Health Organization’s Survive and Thrive: Transforming Care for Every Small and Sick Newborns key findings report, among others.
Currently, I work full time as a Senior Strategic Insights Manager for Dexcom, a mission-driven diabetes medical device company in San Diego. My work keeps me pretty busy, but I do tackle the occasional passion project in my free time. (Interested in hiring me? Shoot me an email.)
As a health communications consultant, I have worked with organizations such as Save the Children, San Diego State University Research Foundation, and Project Concern International.
In 2015, I graduated with a Master of Science in Nutrition from George Mason University, where I was awarded a Provost’s Office research fellowship. (Check out a piece written about my original, mixed methods graduate research about women of reproductive age in Uganda.) In 2006, I earned a Bachelor of Arts from Marlboro College, which has since merged with Emerson College.
I currently serve on the board of directors for Mama’s Kitchen, a San Diego non-profit that provides nutritionally-tailored meals for people with chronic conditions and their caregivers.
In addition to my consulting business, I’m also the Co-Creator of Mindful Return’s Balancing Career with a Special Needs Child, the first program to address the needs of professional parents of children with special healthcare or learning needs. This e-course has been featured in L.A. Parent, Houston Family Magazine, the Mama Bear Podcast, the Beyond the NICU podcast, and Wolf + Friends.
My passion to support people with chronic health conditions and their caregivers stemmed from my family’s story. My twin girls came into the world three months preterm in 2017. Because my daughter Ada was born with a congenital heart defect, my family spent more than two years in the hospital. Tragically, my daughter Ada passed away in September of 2019 at the age of two and a half. You can read more about her story here.
Mia Durairaj 