Aizhan Shomotova, PhD Candidate
Is a current PhD Candidate in Leadership and Policy Studies in Education at the College of Education (CEDU), UAE University. She completed her 2-year master’s degree in Corporate Management at Tongji University, Shanghai, China, and her bachelor’s at KIMEP University, Kazakhstan, both are with the highest distinctions. She has international experience in higher education for more than ten years. Moreover, she extensively engages in collaborative research and publication. She has been working as a Graduate Research Assistant at different departments and co-authored several research projects at UAEU. Aizhan is also serving as an Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Research in Education (IJRE) at CEDU and a Well-being officer at Emirates Center for Happiness research, UAEU. Aizhan presented her works at different international conferences in the field of social sciences, education, and psychology. In addition, she took part in organizing the 5th International Conference in Education 2019 and International Graduate Student Seminar 2021 in collaboration with The Education University of Hong Kong and the University of Helsinki, the online seminar and discussion with speakers from the Ministry of Education of the UAE and CrossCultural Collaboration Symposium 2021 in collaboration with Penn State University Hazleton 2021. Recently, Aizhan was engaged in the work of the National Qualifications Program in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. Her research interests focus on higher education and education management, student leadership development, youth employability, online learning and engagement, graduate students, wellbeing and happiness, digitalization, digital capital, the Middle East, and Post-Soviet countries.