She graduated from the biotechnology program at the faculty of agriculture, Cairo University (excellent with honor’s grade); the graduation project at microbiology department was on "modified culture techniques for the recovery of unculturable Rhizobacteria". She also worked at the Environmental Studies and Research Unit for microbiology for 2 years. She also acquired a professional bioinformatics diploma at Nile University.

Aya worked as a teaching assistant for graduate and undergraduate courses at AUC (American University in Cairo) at the chemistry department, in addition to working as a research assistant at a project in treating wastewater using nanotechnology techniques at AUC.