A visionary leader in higher education reform with 25+ years spanning federal policy and institutional transformation. Proven success in building research universities, engineering national strategies, and aligning academic systems with economic competitiveness.

Dr Almualla holds a PhD degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and an MSc degree in Communication Systems and Signal Processing both from the University of Bristol, U.K. He also holds a BEng (honors) degree in Communications Engineering from Etisalat College of Engineering (currently Khalifa University), UAE.

Dr. Almualla has an extensive academic and administrative experience of more than 25 years. He joined Etisalat College of Engineering in 2000 and then played a major role in the establishment of Khalifa University where he assumed several positions including Campus Manager, Provost, and the Senior Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies

During this academic career, Dr Almualla contributed to teaching and research. He has taught a range of courses such as Signals & Systems, Digital Signal Processing, Audio & Image Processing, and Multimedia. His main research interests are in the areas of multimedia processing and coding and multimedia digital rights management. He has published widely in refereed international journals and conferences and is the author of the book “Video Coding for Mobile Communications: Efficiency, Complexity and Error Resilience”, Academic Press (2002). He supervised a number of Master and Doctorate students.

From 2016, Dr Almualla moved to serve in the UAE federal government. He first served as the Undersecretary for Academic Affairs of Higher Education and then the Undersecretary for Academic Affairs at the Ministry of Education (MoE). He then served as the founding Undersecretary of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR). In these roles he was responsible for the leadership, strategic and executive direction of the ministry’s sectors including Planning & Development, Accreditation & Academic Services, Curriculum, Care and Capacity Building, Governance, and Support Services.

Dr Almualla is actively engaged in Professional Societies. He is a Chartered Engineer (C.Eng.), Member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), and Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Dr. Almualla was the Chairman of the IEEE UAE Section from 2014 to 2016. He also served as the Vice Chairman from 2006 to 2012. He founded the IEEE UAE Signal Processing & Communication Joint Chapter and served as its Founding Chair from 2004 until 2012.

Dr Al-Mualla has been a member of the steering, organizing and technical program committees of many international conferences, and has served on many editorial and reviewing boards of international journals and conferences. Notably he was the executive chair of the IEEE Globecom Conference 2018 and the general chair of the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing in the years 2020 and 2024.

Dr Almualla is serving on a number of Boards and has represented the UAE on many Boards and Committees.