Ali M. Alodat, Ph.D.

Education and Experiences

Dr. Ali M. Alodat is an accomplished scholar, educator, and international researcher whose career centers on advancing inclusive education, gifted education, and equity for marginalized and refugee learners. His academic and professional journey reflects a deep commitment to evidence-based practice, cross-cultural research, and educational reform.
Dr. Alodat began his academic path at the University of Jordan, earning his Bachelor’s degree in Special Education in 2003, followed by a Master’s degree in 2009. His thesis, which examined how thinking-skills instruction enhances creativity among young children, was completed during this period. He later pursued his doctorate at Wayne State University in the United States, completing a Ph.D. in Special Education in 2016 with a dissertation validating the Arabic version of the Cognitive Abilities Screening Test (CogAT-7) for identifying gifted children. This work laid the foundation for his long-term research agenda on equitable gifted identification.
Following his Ph.D., Dr. Alodat completed two prestigious post-doctoral fellowships. At Purdue University, he contributed to a national project on identifying and teaching gifted Syrian refugee students in Jordan. He then joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison as a Post-Doctoral Fellow, conducting research on inclusive practices and empowerment models for refugee students with disabilities. These experiences strengthened his expertise in international comparative education and refugee inclusion.
Dr. Alodat has held multiple academic appointments across Jordan, the United States, and Qatar. He served as an Assistant Professor and later as an Associate Professor at Yarmouk University before joining Qatar University’s College of Education as an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences. He previously served as a Visiting Scholar at both Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His professional background also includes leadership roles as Special Education Director in Michigan and Gifted & Talented Program Supervisor in Jordan, providing him with a unique blend of research, administrative, and school-level experience.
Today, Dr. Alodat is recognized for his scholarly leadership in Qatar and internationally, contributing to policy development, capacity building, and national initiatives to advance inclusive and gifted education systems.

Research and Publications
Dr. Alodat’s research contributions span inclusive education, gifted identification, refugee education, psychosocial support, educational assessment, and Universal Design for Learning. He has authored numerous publications in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals, including Gifted Child Quarterly, High Ability Studies, Frontiers in Education, BMC Psychology, Discover Education, and Education Sciences. His scholarship includes psychometric validation studies, systematic reviews, qualitative research, and comparative international analyses.
A central focus of his work is promoting equity in identifying gifted learners, particularly those from multilingual, refugee, and culturally diverse populations. His recent publications validate primary gifted assessment tools in the Qatari context (e.g., GRS-P, GRS-School Form) and contribute new frameworks for identifying gifted refugee students. Additionally, he leads research on classification systems, progress monitoring, and AI-based educational tools in Qatar.
He is an active presenter at major international conferences, including AERA, WCGTC, and CEC, as well as education conferences across the Middle East, Europe, and North America.

Funded Projects and Advisory Roles
Dr. Alodat has led and collaborated on multiple funded research projects across Qatar, Jordan, Canada, and the EU. His portfolio includes grants focused on mental health, Universal Design for Learning, inclusive education practices, student political participation, and AI-driven systems for student classification and progress monitoring. Notably, he serves as a Lead of Qatar University’s “Classifying and Progress Monitoring System (CPMS)”, a pioneering artificial-intelligence project that supports students with educational challenges.
His advisory roles include serving as a delegate to the WCGTC, consulting for international organizations, and advising international institutions on gifted research. These contributions reflect his expanding influence on regional educational policy and global best practices.

Awards and Recognitions
Dr. Alodat’s achievements have been recognized through numerous prestigious awards, including:
– Best Research Group Award, Qatar University (2025)
– Best Paper Award at the Engineering International Conference on Electrical, Energy, and Artificial Intelligence (2024)
– REN Conference Best Article Award (2023)
– Fulbright Visiting Scholar Award (2021)
– Multiple competitive fellowships and scholarships from Wayne State University
– International recognitions from the Intel ISEF competitions for supervising award-winning student innovation projects