Dr. Kiran Mathai

Principal at Elite English School LLC

Speaker

Dr Kiran Mathai is the Principal of Elite English School Dubai and an Adjunct Lecturer in the M.Ed. programme at Murdoch University Dubai. She holds a doctorate from Birmingham City University (awarded September 2025), where her research established foundational principles for reading comprehension instruction for second-language learners across six international schools in Dubai.

Her doctoral study, a Qualitative Interpretative Phenomenological Case Study involving 32 teachers, produced the original 'Combination Paradigm': a theoretical framework integrating cognitive science, socio-constructivism, and critical literacy theory, developed specifically for EAL literacy in multilingual international school contexts.

As a school principal, Kiran leads a KG–Grade 12 community under KHDA/DSIB quality standards. She developed her school's whole-school pedagogical framework grounded in Rosenshine's Principles and Dweck's Growth Mindset, and built a four-year school improvement plan anchored in classroom evidence and academic research.

She teaches research methods to heads and senior teachers from international schools across the UAE, bringing the same ethos to the university as to the school: rigorous, practical, and deeply human.