Institutional Research

The Office of Institutional Research works across NYUAD departments to lead the University’s efforts to collect and analyze institutional data in support of the University’s planning, assessment, and strategic decision-making connected to the faculty, students, curriculum and student advising, academic facilities, and research to enhance the University’s impact and increase the effectiveness of constituent and stakeholder interaction. The Office also facilitates the official recognition of the institution and its academic programs through the reporting of data to various internal and external stakeholders, including accrediting bodies and consortia in the UAE and the US.

Richard joined NYUAD in November 2022, and is responsible for leading the utilization of data and analytics to help inform the implementation of our Academic Strategy. He has extensive regional experience establishing, and sustaining, an institutional-oriented: analytics, data privacy, assessment, accreditation, and quality assurance infrastructure. He most recently served as the (Founding) Head of Institutional Reporting & Data Governance (in the Office of the President) at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. And, immediately prior to this, he was the Director of Institutional Research & Planning (in the Office of the Provost) at Zayed University in the UAE.  

Richard also has a deep knowledge of global academic practices and US higher education institutions obtained through: education and training from the University of Rochester, Penn State, Indiana University, and Stanford; providing data science and econometric-oriented consultations at the Harvard-MIT Data Center; publishing internationally recognized scholarly work as a Research Fellow at Harvard, and as a faculty member at Vanderbilt; and teaching undergraduate and graduate students through formal classes at Vanderbilt, and specialized computational social science seminars he offered at Harvard and Northwestern. He has also been responsible for leading institutional effectiveness-oriented units while serving as the Director of Research and Analysis (in the Graduate School) at Northwestern, and as the Assistant Vice Provost of Institutional Research and Assessment at the University of Tennessee.

Key People