Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs

The Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs oversees graduate academics and student life for the NYU Abu Dhabi campus. The goal of the office is to create a thriving community at NYUAD for graduate students and postdoctoral associates, coordinating a holistic approach to their training, and serving as a resource for nearly 300 postgraduate researchers and their faculty mentors. The Office partners with academic programs, faculty, staff, and campus organizations across NYU Abu Dhabi to promote excellence in graduate education and postdoctoral training.

The Office currently supports PhD students through the Global PhD Student Fellowship, as well as students in master's programs in Art and Media and Economics. Our team members design strategies for all topics that impact graduate study, including:

• academic governance
• new academic degree proposals
• recruitment and admissions
• funding and benefits
• mentorship
• academic progress
• career preparedness
• residential services
• individual well-being
• student assistantships and TAships
• IDBE programs and initiatives
• visiting graduate students
• alumni services

The Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs also supports postdoctoral associates by providing services and resources that enhance their research and that provide the skills needed to successfully transition to an academic or non-academic career. The Office fosters a sense of community for postdoctoral associates that prioritizes excellence, collaboration, and wellness.

Carol Genetti serves as Vice Provost for Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs at NYU Abu Dhabi, where she works to create and advance postgraduate programs that embody the global, liberal arts, and interdisciplinary ethos of the campus. She provides oversight and guidance for the Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs Office and the services provided to graduate students and postdocs. She serves on the Graduate Policy and Curriculum Committee, which assesses graduate programming and graduate-level curricula across the academic divisions, as well as many other committees across the campus.

Carol joined NYUAD in the fall of 2020 from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she served for eight years as Dean of the Graduate Division and held the Anne and Michael Towbes Graduate Dean Chair. Prior to that she served for seven years as Associate Dean in Humanities and Fine Arts and six years as Chair of the Department of Linguistics.

In her scholarly life, Carol is a linguist who specializes in Himalayan languages, especially those of the Tibeto-Burman language family. Her work spans multiple subfields of linguistics, including language documentation, syntax, historical linguistics, and prosody. She seeks to discover how linguistic structures are shaped by the ways speakers use language as a tool of communication in their daily lives. Her 2007 monograph, A Grammar of Dolakha Newar, received the inaugural Georg von der Gabelentz Award from the Association for Linguistic Typology. She is the founding director of InField/CoLang, a biennial institute on the conservation and revitalization of endangered languages, and is also the author of an introductory textbook, How Languages Work, now in its 2nd edition.

Key People