About

Kyle Long is President of the American University in Dubai (AUD).

AUD is the oldest American university in the Gulf region (est. 1995). It is accredited in the United States by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and in the United Arab Emirates by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research’s Commission for Academic Accreditation. AUD’s 2,000+ students come from 100+ countries and are enrolled in one of its six schools: Architecture, Art, & Design; Arts & Sciences; Business; Education; Engineering; and the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Communication. A School of Medicine, presently under development in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, will be the university’s seventh.

​Prior to AUD, Dr. Long served on the faculty at the George Washington University. He has also served on the faculty and in administrative leadership at Northwestern University and the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. He has taught courses on international education, higher education policy, foreign policy, public diplomacy, and international development. He has led change management, communications, development, and research units for universities and has advised higher education leaders, government officials, and private entrepreneurs about university governance, academic development, and enrollment management.

​Dr. Long is a committed champion of underprivileged and marginalized students. He is especially attuned to the socioeconomic challenges of higher education access and completion. At Northwestern, he served on the university's committee charged with developing strategies to support first-generation and low-income students. During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, he initiated an emergency fund to help relieve financial pressures faced by American University of Iraq students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Dr. Long has also been involved with efforts to provide resources for students with backgrounds as refugees, internally displaced persons, and/or religious and ethnic minorities. A signature initiative he led created opportunities for Afghan students to communicate directly with U.S. policymakers.
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Dr. Long is an award-winning author and internationally recognized authority on American education outside the United States. He is a sought-after conference speaker and regularly comments on international education issues in the press. His scholarship has appeared in International Higher Education, The Journal of International and Comparative Higher Education, and Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, among other venues. Dr. Long founded and directs the Global American Higher Education research initiative, which provides timely data and analysis to academics, policymakers, and journalists. He holds a PhD in International and Comparative Education from Columbia University.