Board of Trustees
His Excellency Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, Ph.D. serves as Advisor in the Amiri Diwan in Doha, Qatar. He is Chair of the Executive Board and Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Qatar University. He is a member of the Board of Directors and Managing Director of Qatar Leadership Centre, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies –Tarsheed.
From 2010 to 2015 Dr. Al-Thani served as the inaugural President of Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar, an emerging research university building upon unique collaborations with local and international partners. At Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), he was Vice President, Education, for 10 years, developing Qatar Foundation’s institutional strategy for higher education.
In 2009 he launched Stars of Science, a reality-TV show with four million followers across the Arab world. The program has encouraged innovation among Arab youth, while promoting the study of science among the rising generation in the region.
Dr. Al-Thani was founding Chairman of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), (2009-2015), the leading global forum for innovative thinking and practice in education. His leadership generated a number of initiatives that have won widespread renown, including the WISE Prize for Education, WISE Awards and WISE Learners Voice.
The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader for his regional role in education reform and innovation. In 2015 the Government of the Republic of France named him Commandeur, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for achievements in education and culture. He accepted the Magisterio Prize for Education Leaders on behalf of WISE from Her Royal Highness Letizia Ortiz of Spain in 2012.
Among several education-related initiatives, he was previously a member of Qatar’s Supreme Education Council. He is Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, and a member of the Board of Directors of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., the Board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut, and the Board of Advisers of the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston. He served on the Executive Council of the World Digital Library at the Library of Congress (US), and on the Governing Board of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning in Hamburg, Germany.
He received a PhD in Civil Engineering (University of Southampton), an MS (Colorado State University) and a BS (Qatar University); he taught engineering at Qatar University.
Dr. Al-Thani is a keen patron of the arts; he established Al-Markhiya gallery in Doha in 2008 to promote Arab art regionally and globally, and founded East Wing in Doha in 2012 as a global platform for innovative dialogues in photography. It has participated in Paris Photo, Photo London, and leading international art fairs. Dr. Al-Thani has been active in supporting and promoting arts and cultural initiatives of Qatar Museums.
Dr. Darwish Alemadi’s career in higher education spans over three decades spent mostly at Qatar University in a variety of academic leadership positions.
After graduating from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, with a Ph.D. in Linguistics in 1986, Dr. Alemadi was appointed Assistant Professor (1986) and subsequently Associate Professor (1992) in the Department of English and Modern European Languages.
During that time, Dr. Alemadi also assumed a number of senior academic leadership roles at Qatar University, including Vice Dean (1992-2000) and Dean (1995-2000) of the College of Science and Humanities and Dean of the Graduate School (2000-2003). It was during his tenure that the first graduate program was launched at Qatar University, the Master in Business Administration (MBA) in 2002. In 2008, Dr. Darwish became the founding Director of the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute at Qatar University, a thriving research center with a mandate to conduct high quality academic surveys in areas of interest to Qatari society. In 2014, he assumed the position of Associate Vice President for Research Operations overseeing the operation of five research centers. In 2015 Dr. Alemadi was appointed Acting Vice President for Research at Qatar University. In 2016 Dr. Alemadi has been appointed as Chief Strategy and Development Officer.
Beyond Qatar University, Dr. Alemadi was the Director of the Education Institute at the then-newly established Supreme Education Council between 2003 and 2004, where his tenure saw the growth of the Education Institute into a 200 employee-strong organization with several departments.
Dr. Alemadi’s research interests, publications, and conference presentations reflect his interest in sociolinguistics, and more recently in the area of survey research. He is currently the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the World Values Survey Association, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committees of the Arab Barometer initiative and the European University Institute.
Wadha Al-Hajri is a Research Assistant at the ACRPS. Her research interests include the study of the Qatari National Identity and the effect collective memory has had on its formation. Participant at Rising Leaders program 2017, at Qatar Leadership Center. She holds a BA in International Affairs from Qatar University. She has participated in a number of international conferences on interfaith and women’s empowerment issues
Samia Bishara is the Managing Director of Tarsheed, leading and overseeing the operations of Tarsheed and all its projects. She is a social planner and researcher with long experience in planning and managing programs related to family counseling, domestic violence, child development, and child abuse prevention and teen empowerment projects and programs.
Prior to joining Tarsheed, Samia was the Director of the Training and Consultancy Division at the Jordan River Foundation (JRF). She was responsible for setting up the ‘Knowledge, Skills, and Tools’ arm of the Foundation, a new type of initiative offering sustainable quality trainings to development practitioners and public institutions and building a network of partners at the local, regional and international levels. Samia also was the Director of the Child Safety Program (CSP) for the Foundation, an internationally recognized Arab model for child safety. She was the Manager of Queen Rania Family and Child Center (QRFCC) in 2004-2013, a prevention program that falls under the umbrella of the foundation’s Child Safety Program. Prior to joining JRF, Samia was the Director of the Family Center in East Jerusalem, a center that provides psychosocial services for domestic violence victims. She has also managed a family daycare project in East Jerusalem. Samia holds both a Masters and BS degrees in social work
Dr. Eyad Masad is Vice Dean at Texas A&M at Qatar. He has been with Texas A&M University for 13 years. He is responsible for providing leadership to the academic, research and outreach missions of the campus as well as to its administrative and financial functions. As Vice Dean, Masad also plays a leading role in creating and executing the campus’s long-term strategic plan, which includes a commitment to integrating transformative educational experiences, global experiences, leadership development, and innovation into the engineering curriculum at Texas A&M at Qatar. He has considerable experience in curriculum development, pedagogy and effective learning techniques. Prior to becoming Vice Dean, Masad served as Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, during which he supervised the tremendous growth research funding as well as the development of strategic areas and centers.
Dr. Masad is also a Professor of Engineering at Texas A&M’s branch campus in Qatar (Mechanical Engineering) and the main campus in the United States (Civil Engineering), where he holds the prestigious Zachry Professorship in Design and Construction Integration. Masad’s research focuses on microstructure characterization and constitutive modeling of materials; transport in porous media; granular mechanics; and image analysis techniques. He has published more than 300 technical papers and reports. Masad is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as well as the recipient of several prestigious awards from academic institutions and professional organizations for his teaching, research and service contributions.
Dr. Nouf is currently the Library Director at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (DI). She obtained her master’s and PhD degrees in Information Studies from McGill University in Canada. Before joining the DI, she was one of the founding members of the Qatar National Library, ending her tenure there as the Outreach and Community Engagement Manager. Her teaching and research experience lay in Human-Information Interaction including information retrieval, information seeking behavior, and User Experience and Usability.
Is a passionate leader with first class communication skills and a long track of successful management positions. He is currently working at Qatar Leadership Center as the Program Manager. In this capacity, he manages the executive programs that prepare head of departments for senior leading positions in the private and governmental sectors.
Prior to working at QLC, Mr. Albinali served as the Senior Advisor of Qatar Supreme Education Council which is a governmental agency that oversees the education system in Qatar. Among his main responsibilities was building strategies for an E.learning program which was implemented in more than 20 schools for levels from KG-secondary.
Earlier Mr. Albinali was the Career Service & Employment Coordinator at Qatar Foundation and was responsible for the Student Employment Program within the Education city developing policies and procedures ,and designing the structural process of the program overseeing the compliance of all the universities within Education City with QF guidelines.
He earned his Bachelor of Business Administration in Human Resource Management at Eastern Washington University in 2006.
Mr. Abbad Yahya
General Manager of the Alaraby Television Network. Member of the founding board and former managing editor of Manhajiyat. Journalist, researcher and novelist.
He worked as director of the media sector in Fadaat media Group, editor in chief of Ultra Sawt website, and executive director of Jeel Media. He wrote for more than fifteen years with Arab and international newspapers, and worked as a cultural correspondent for Monte Carlo Radio.
He worked as a researcher at Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and as an editor of Tabayyun journal for Philosophical Studies and Critical Theories. He published academic papers in his field of specialization in sociology. He has published five novels, the latest is "Ramallah".
He holds a Master's degree in Sociology, and a Bachelor's degree in Radio and Television.
Mahmoud Amra is the Superintendent of AIA. He holds a Master’s degree in Physics from Leipzig University in Germany along with a Master’s degree in Education from Birzeit University in Palestine.
He has taught Physics and Mathematics at university and school levels for many years before moving to school administration. Mahmoud has occupied several administrative positions, which include the Principal of the Friends School, a renowned private IB school in Palestine. Furthermore, he contributed to the establishment of several educational non-governmental organizations in Palestine and served as a member of their board of trustees for many years.
His participation in many national committees the latest of which was the Committee for Professional Development of Principals in Palestine, contributed significantly to the maturation of planning, curriculum development and teacher training.
Mahmoud has provided training in teaching-strategies and distance-learning for university and school teachers. His experience and work show his genuine interest for international programs; most evidently by obtaining the IB MYP authorization for the mid-level and IB Diploma for the upper secondary level at the Friends School.
