Middlesex University Dubai Faculty: Who's Actually Teaching You

Quick Overview

Key Takeaways

• Professor Cedwyn Fernandes, who has a PhD in Economics from the University of Mumbai, has served as Provost and Director since 2015, and was previously involved in international project funding as an economist at Saudi Arabian Airlines.

• Middlesex Dubai employs more than 300 staff across its Dubai Knowledge Park and Dubai International Academic City campuses, per the university's own careers page.

• The Faculty of Law's Mooting Society is ranked number 1 in the UAE for Mooting and 20th in the world for Mediation and Negotiation, according to the NICA Team Ranking, and mooting forms part of compulsory LLB assessment rather than an extracurricular add-on.

• Research achievements earned MDX Dubai a 5-star KHDA Research rating three times in a row, with a case-study mention in the QAA's Quality Enhancement of UK Transnational Education Scheme.

• MDX Dubai runs nine named research centres and enterprise arms, from the Social Psychology Research Lab and Empirics Lab to the Institute for Sustainable Development and JURIS, each with a named lead.

• Middlesex Dubai's Office of Research runs a weekly seminar series started in 2008, with more than 385 presentations delivered to date.

Introduction

Ask a prospective student what they actually know about the people teaching their course, and most can't name a single professor. That's a strange gap for a decision this size. Middlesex University Dubai presents the information on its faculty in much greater detail than many other branches of the university, including individual research profiles and lists of publications on the university website. This guide compiles the necessary information for those interested in learning who leads the institution, what departments and faculties it comprises, specific research opportunities, and what the Faculty of Law provides beyond regular lectures and examinations.

Leadership: Who Runs Middlesex University Dubai

At the top of the structure is Professor Cedwyn Fernandes who has been serving as a Provost and Director since 2015. He studied at the University of Mumbai, finishing his BA in Economics in 1981, followed by the MA in 1983 and PhD in 1988. Before receiving his higher education, he worked as an economist for the Saudi Arabian Airlines, managing projects related to international investment business, which is reflected in the interests of supply chain and logistics economics.

Under his leadership, the campus grew into one of the largest branch campuses of any UK university anywhere in the world outside China. During his term as Pro Vice-Chancellor, the university picked up a 5-star HEC Rating, developed by KHDA in partnership with QS. In addition to his role as an administrator, Fernandes is also a working researcher, with published work including reflections on crisis leadership lessons learned from COVID-19, macroeconomic modelling for the UAE, and Dubai’s D33 economic agenda (presented as a keynote lecture at the university’s own Souq Economics conference in January 2024).

Note: Titles at Middlesex Dubai appear to be inconsistently applied across the university’s own websites; on some pages, Fernandes is listed as “Pro Vice-Chancellor and Director,” while others list him as “Provost and Director.” His current official staff page reads “Provost and Director,” and that is the title used throughout this guide.

If you're weighing Middlesex Dubai against other Dubai law schools or branch campuses, the Middlesex University Dubai profile on Study From UAE carries current programme-level fees and admission requirements alongside what's covered here.

Faculty Structure: The Departments With Named Research Leadership

Middlesex Dubai's four core teaching departments each publish their own "Meet Your Faculty" page and carry the named research leadership covered later in this guide:

The Research Backbone: Office of Research

Faculty credibility is not only determined by the individuals but also by the content which they publish and the support which the institution provides. The Office of Research at Middlesex Dubai takes the responsibility of this aspect. As per the Office’s site, its objective directly links to the University’s Strategy 2031, which focuses on research-based initiatives which will make the society a better and more sustainable place (MDX Dubai Office of Research).

A few concrete numbers worth knowing:

• The weekly Research Seminar Series was launched in 2008 and has to date presented over 385 lectures by MDX faculty and researchers from other UAE and international institutions.

• The Faculty Annual Research Boot Camp is held every summer and aims to transition faculty members from teaching mode to research and writing mode; a recent Boot Camp comprising 22 facilitated sessions over five weeks attracted over 50 staff.

• A Faculty Peer Research Mentoring Programme, which has been running since 2020, pairs early-career researchers with mentors.

• The Office of Student Research (OSR) also has its own summer boot camp for postgraduate students, which saw a total of 335 postgraduate students take part in the 2021 edition which took place between June and September spanning a variety of disciplines. Older editions exist, though the office's own page doesn't publish an exact launch year, so treat "since 2019" claims about this specific programme with caution until MDX confirms it directly.

Here's the recognition that actually carries weight externally: MDX Dubai's research dimension earned a 5-star KHDA rating three times in a row, and its approach was cited as an exemplary case study in the UK's Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) review of transnational education branch campuses. That second point matters more than it sounds; QAA case studies aren't handed out as marketing favours, they're drawn from an external quality review process.

Named Faculty and Their Research Areas

Rather than a generic "our professors are experts" claim, the Office of Research names specific people and the labs, centres and enterprise arms they founded or lead:

• Professor Cody Morris Paris, Professor of Business, Sustainability and Society and Deputy Director of Research & Business.

• Dr Sreejith Balasubramanian, Associate Professor and Chair of the Office of Research, who also founded and heads the Centre for Supply Chain Excellence.

• Professor Fehmida Hussain, Professor in Computer Engineering and Informatics, Deputy Director for Engagement and Student Experience, and founder of the Centre for Innovation in Human Experience and the MDX Innovation Hub.

• Dr Nishtha Lamba, Associate Professor of Psychology and founder of the Social Psychology Research Lab.

• Dr Athanasia Kalaitzi, Associate Professor and founder of the Empirics Lab.

• Dr Sameer Kishore, Associate Professor in Robotics and CEI, founder of the VRX Lab and co-founder of the Thrive Lab.

Beyond this core group, Middlesex Dubai's Research and Business division lists four further named centres: the Institute for Sustainable Development, the Applied AI & Insights Lab, the Centre of Excellence for Foresight and Emerging Technologies, and the Souq Economics Centre for Economics Research. Nine labs, centres and enterprise arms in total, each with a named academic lead. That's a fairly dense concentration of research leadership for a teaching-focused branch campus, though it's worth noting these are self-published university profiles, not an independently audited faculty census.

The Faculty of Law: What Makes It Different

Middlesex Dubai was the first university to offer a face-to-face LLB (British Qualifying Law) degree in Dubai, and the Faculty of Law and Politics runs its own Mooting Society, distinct from most law departments where mooting is an optional club.

The strongest third-party validation here isn't a marketing claim; it's a ranking nobody at MDX had to write themselves. In 2022, the NICA Team Ranking placed Middlesex Dubai's Mooting Society number 1 in the UAE for Mooting and 20th in the world for Mediation and Negotiation, based on an analysis of more than 1,700 law schools' participation in international and national moot court competitions. That's a genuinely comparable, cross-institution number, which is rare in this kind of faculty profile.

Two details worth knowing before you assume mooting is a nice-to-have:

• Mooting forms part of compulsory assessment throughout the LLB programmes, not an extracurricular activity you opt into.

• The Mooting Society is student-led but faculty-supported, running internal and international competitions including VisMoot and the DIFC Moot.

Faculty in this department include Samantha Jayne Roberts, Head of the Juris Centre of Excellence in Legal Education and Training, who has led the undergraduate Law and Politics programmes since 2018 and holds an LLB and MA in Medical Ethics and Law from King's College London. Lubna Khan, also on faculty, holds accreditation in family mediation and a Masters in International Law and Economics from the University of London, with published research on arbitration and mediation.

The Faculty of Law also runs JURIS, one of the university's enterprise arms. Rather than the vague "connects legal education to practice" framing you'll see elsewhere, JURIS actually breaks down into named, functioning programmes: a Law Career Clinic, a Law Firm Project that places students with practising firms, a Law Alumni Network, personal tutoring and mentoring, professional training and consultancy work, and MDX's own pro bono initiatives. That's a working pipeline, not a slogan.

Honest gap here: the Faculty of Law's staff page is publicly listed but its full roster wasn't independently verifiable within this research pass beyond the individuals named above. If you are considering a choice in this department, make sure to request the faculty list from admissions directly before enrollment.

If you're planning on studying law, an LLB in Dubai guide on Study From UAE goes through how Dubai's legal environment and branch-campus law degrees can tie into an international law career, and the LLB (Hons) Law course page will provide the structure and entry requirements that you can compare against what's detailed above.

What This Means If You're Comparing Universities

A faculty and research profile only matters if it changes a real decision. Two practical takeaways:

If you're choosing a law degree specifically, the compulsory-mooting structure, the NICA ranking, and the JURIS enterprise link are genuine differentiators worth weighing against other Dubai law schools, not just marketing language. If you're choosing based on research supervision quality for a postgraduate dissertation, the named lab founders above are a reasonable starting point for finding a supervisor whose published work actually matches your interests, rather than picking blind.

Either way, weighing a faculty profile in isolation only gets you so far; run the numbers against your own budget before you shortlist. The Study From UAE ROI Calculator maps starting salary, monthly savings and payback period against a specific programme's total cost, which is a more useful comparison point once you've narrowed your options down to two or three universities.

Conclusion

Faculty staff is difficult to assess through the image on the brochure, but compared to other branch campuses, Middlesex Dubai appears to provide more information on its academic provision. The university has a named, tenured Provost with more than 20 years of regional experience, a research office with a documented series of seminars since 2008, and the Faculty of Law actually integrates mootings into the grade assessment process, not just claiming to do so based on an easy-to-find local ranking. If a particular course or supervisor is of interest, contacting the relevant department is advised, as staff changes appear to occur on an annual basis.