NTU alumna Sumaya Afrin Misti wins Study UK Alumni Award for Social Action
The British Council hosted the Study UK Bangladesh Alumni Awards 2026 on 11 December 2025 in Dhaka, honouring the remarkable achievements of UK graduates who are shaping the world.
Published on 20 January 2026
Categories: Alumni;
The Study UK Alumni Awards are designed to recognise the impact of UK higher education worldwide. Each year, alumni from UK universities are celebrated for using their learning, networks and values to make significant contributions to their communities, industries, and countries.
Among this year’s winners was Nottingham Trent University (NTU) alumna Sumaya Afrin Misti, who received the Social Action Award. A Chevening scholar and child psychologist, Sumaya strengthens school-based mental health systems and co-founded BloomAid to expand access to evidence-based counselling and youth advocacy.
Sumaya shared: "When I left Bangladesh in 2020 as an A-levels psychology teacher and school psychologist, my goal was simple: understand children's minds well enough to change the systems around them."
That ambition took her to NTU, where she completed an MSc in Applied Child Psychology.
Reflecting on her UK experience, Sumaya credited NTU with reshaping how she thinks about impact. "My MSc in Applied Child Psychology gave me the conceptual tools and practical rigour to do that," she explained. Alongside her studies, she worked as a teaching assistant at Nottingham High School, shadowing pastoral leads and learning about robust referral pathways, and data collection for wellbeing. "These experiences changed how I think about scale – individual therapy matters, but policy, teacher training, and curriculum change multiply its impact."
Since returning to Bangladesh, Sumaya has focused on building systems that reach beyond her office. She co-founded BloomAid, an online mental health platform created to bring accessible counselling and capacity-building to students and communities without school psychologists.
In just one year, she delivered 71 counselling sessions to 23 individuals, and supervised interns who went on to support peers in their own schools.
Sumaya is now Head of Counselling at an international academy in Dhaka, where she designs and delivers mental health and leadership lessons, and trains teachers to run them.
"My time in the UK became the blueprint for the leadership I now provide,” she said. “I translated advanced clinical methods and school governance lessons into a strengthened student-support system."
Sumaya has also mentored colleagues applying for UK Masters programmes and Chevening scholarships, supervised and trained early-career school psychologists, and inspired students to pursue psychology and social impact careers.
"This is social action rooted in education," she reflected. "My story shows how a focused UK education can be a fulcrum – shifting individual lives, improving school systems, and inspiring the next generation of Bangladeshi students and professionals."