Dr. Anna Dillon is an Associate Professor at Emirates College for Advanced Education. She has worked in the UAE since 2013, initially as a public school teacher and Head of Faculty in a kindergarten, and then as a teacher educator at Zayed University. She has held a variety of different administrative roles including Director of the Early Childhood Learning Center, an on-campus laboratory school at Zayed University, Chair of the Department of Education Studies, and Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at Zayed University.
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Associate Professor in Counseling, Special Education, & Neuroscience Division Chair of Institutional Review Board (IRB)
Dr. Claudine Habak is a renowned cognitive neuroscientist and psychophysicist, specializing in information processing in perception and cognition and currently chairs ECAE’s Institutional Research Board.
Since joining ECAE in 2015, she played an instrumental role in co-founding the Educational Neuroscience Research Center as well as the Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit.
As an Associate Professor in Counseling, Special Education, & Neuroscience Division, Dr. Habak’s research addresses perceptual change with a focus on contextual interactions in visual perception, and the link between visual perception and cognition. She uses a multimodal approach that includes psychophysics and behavioral measures and fMRI. Recently, she has been applying the fundamentals of perceptual cognitive neuroscience to the educational context, with the goal of improving how information is presented and treated.
Prior to her work with ECAE, she was a researcher at Université de Montréal’s Psychophysics and Visual Perception Laboratory, a postdoctoral fellow with Oury Monchi at the Montreal Geriatric Institute, and with Hugh R. Wilson at York’s Center for Vision Research.
Dr. Habak has published extensively in prestigious international peer-reviewed research journals, with numerous highly-cited papers, and has filed two patents.
Associate Professor in Counseling, Special Education, & Neuroscience Division
Chair of Institutional Review Board (IRB)
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Research Journals
Books/Chapters
Provisional Patent (PCT) submitted - US Patent App. 20,150,230,744 "METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ASSESSING A STIMULUS PROPERTY PERCEIVED BY A SUBJECT" Inventors: Jocelyn Faubert, Claudine Habak, Rafael Doti & Eduardo Lugo
Provisional Patent (PCT) submitted - US Patent App. 20,150,238,083 "METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR OPTICALLY INVESTIGATING A TISSUE OF A SUBJECT" Inventors: Jocelyn Faubert, Claudine Habak, Rafael Doti & Eduardo Lugo
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Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic
Professor David Pedder completed his PhD in 2001 from the University of Cambridge as an ESRC-funded student. He carried out a mixed methods investigation for his thesis: ‘The impact of class size on effective teaching and learning: a conceptual and methodological investigation’. In 1996 he obtained his MSc in Educational Research Methodology at the University of Oxford.
Professor Pedder joined ECAE in September 2018 as Deputy Vice Chancellor – Academic. Before taking up his position with us he was, from September 2017, Professor of Education at the Education Research Centre, University of Brighton School of Education. Previously, he was Professor of Education and Director of Research at the University of Leicester School of Education between 2011 and 2017. Between 2000 and 2010 he was Research Associate, Senior Research Associate, Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education.Since 2016 he has been Co-editor of the International Journal of Lesson and Learning Studies.
David has extensive experience teaching English as a Foreign Language, working in workplaces, schools and classrooms in Japan (1985-1988) and, with Voluntary Service Overseas, in high schools in West Papua, Indonesia (1989-1995). He has many years’ experience working alongside fellow teachers to support professional learning and practice development in a range of pre-service and in-service contexts in Indonesia and the UK.
He also has extensive experience as an educational researcher in a large number of national and international research projects. In broad terms his research focuses on the quantitative and qualitative study of classroom teaching and learning, teachers’ professional learning, organisational learning, school improvement, and educational leadership. More specifically, his ongoing research programme is concerned with understanding and promoting the spread and uptake of effective learning, teaching and leadership practices across classrooms, schools and networks. As part of this research programme he explores how educational change is achieved at different scales and in different organisational, policy and cultural contexts. This has involved a sustained research and development focus on pedagogic innovation, teachers’ professional learning and organisational conditions that foster advances in both. His research addresses complex questions of how the values, thinking and practices of students, teachers and leadership teams recursively interact to influence school improvement, teachers’ professional learning, and classroom teaching and learning.
Professor Pedder has published extensively in prestigious international peer-reviewed research journals and has co-authored and contributed to several books and other publications.
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Assistant Professor in Curriculum and Instruction Division and Undergraduate Program Chair
Dr. Dean Cairns is a former scientist and education advisor with over 15 years of experience in the education sector in the UK a teacher, a department head and key stage 3 science consultant.
Since joining ECAE in 2015, he has served as Division Head for Science and Mathematics and the Program Chair for Undergraduate Programs. He has taught undergraduate courses in the sciences, science pedagogical content knowledge and integrated curriculum and assessment.
Prior to his work with ECAE, Cairns worked for 2 years as a science advisor and curriculum developer for ADEK. He worked with a specialized team to develop the Cycle 2 science curriculum and assessment framework and teacher support documentation.
Dr. Cairns completed his BSc in Chemistry and his MSc in Polymer Science at Lancaster University. After a short time in the chemical industry he undertook a PhD at Sussex University in Polymer Chemistry. His students and departments regularly placed in the 95% percentile, nationwide, for value-added and overall attainment in key stage 2 and 3 science.
His areas of current research interest include: science teaching methods, educational measurement and multi-level modelling as a means of determining the effectiveness of instructional techniques. He is currently undertaking a Doctorate in Education at the University of Bath.
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Research Journals
Editorial advisory board member, (2018). Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives on 3D Printing in Education. IGI Global.
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