The Doha Institute Board of Trustees (BoT) presided by Dr. Azmi Bishara, Chair of Doha Institute for Graduate Studies has appointed Dr. Abdelwahab El Affendi as Acting President of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies succeeding Dr Yasir Suleiman Malley.
On this occasion, Dr. El Affendi thanked BoT for honoring him with this mission, which comes during a critical period of global health crisis and praised the high performance led by Dr Azmi Bishara and his predecessor Dr Malley.
The new Acting President thanked the Qatari leadership and people for providing support and resources, affirming that the Institute will double its efforts during the coming period to fulfill its mission towards serving the State of Qatar, its people and its institutions, the Arab nation as well as the international scientific community.
Pointing out that Doha Institute will continue to make distinguished contributions with the rest of Qatar's Higher Education Institutions in order to develop social sciences and humanities, graduating qualified generations of researchers and professionals, and reinforcing the Institute’s position as one of the many positive contributions that Qatar makes to the world.
Dr. El Affendi has held the position of Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at DI since 2017. Before that, he served as Head of the Politics and International Relations Program at DI (2015-2017).
Dr El Affendi holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Reading University, UK. He has a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from Swansea, University of Wales, UK; and a Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy from the University of Khartoum, Sudan.
Dr. El Affendi worked as coordinator of the Democracy and Islam Program at the University of Westminster (since 1998). Also held the position as a diplomat in the Sudanese Foreign Ministry (1990-1997), a London-based journalist including editor or managing editor of several publications (1982-1990).
Dr. El Affendi was a visiting fellow/professor at the Christian Michelsen Institute (Bergen, Norway), and the Universities of Northwestern (Chicago), Oxford, Cambridge, and the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (Malaysia). Delivered keynote speeches and lectures at most major universities in the US, UK and a number of universities in Asia, Africa and South America.
In addition to teaching, Dr. El Affendi has completed many research studies, books in Arabic and English in the field of critical theories of democracy and democratic transformation, contemporary Islamic thought and modern Islamic movements, politics and society in Sudan and the Arab world, mass violence, extermination and others.
