Manar E. Abdel-Rahman is a graduate from the Faculty of Mathematical Sciences, University of Khartoum (Sudan) and University of Kent at Canterbury (UK). She trained in Biostatistics and was awarded a PhD at Boston University (USA).

Manar was employed at the Faculty of Mathematical Sciences, University of Khartoum soon after her graduation in 1986. She held previous positions of Head of Statistics Department, Deputy Dean and then Dean of the Faculty of Mathematical Sciences, University of Khartoum (Sudan) until 2012. She is currently an associate professor of Biostatistics at the Department of Statistics of the Faculty of Mathematical Sciences, University of Khartoum.

She previously worked on cancer survival of Atomic bomb survivors at the Radiation Effects Research foundation in Hiroshima (Japan). She spent one year on Sabbatical with the Cancer Research UK Cancer Survival Group at the Non-communicable Disease Epidemiology Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine UK, during 2007-2008.

Over the past decade, Manar has been involved with household surveys, mainly Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and also Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). She is currently serving as a household survey expert for UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Region.

Her research interests include survival analysis, discrete data analysis, modelling relative survival; assessing socio-economic inequalities in cancer survival; estimating secondary measures of cancer survival in addition to analysis of complex survey data on women and children health.