ABA United Arab Emirates

By Michelle P. Kelly

The Association for Behavior Analysis – United Arab Emirates (ABA-UAE) was officially affiliated with the ABAI on November 18th, 2020. ABA-UAE registered with the Dubai Association Center (DAC) in September 2020 and was licensed on February 28th, 2022. ABA-UAE’s Executive Committee includes Dr. Michelle P. Kelly, BCBA-D (President), Ms. Sharifa Yateem, BCBA (President-Elect), Ms. Linda Bailey, BCBA (Secretary), Ms. Nipa Bhuptani, BCaBA (Treasurer), and Adel Wahdain (Student Representative). The Board consists of the Executive Committee and the following members: Dr. Ebrahim Alhajri (Chair), Ms. Khawla Barley (Vice-Chair), and our members-at-large, Mr. Nicholas Orland, BCBA, and Ms. Irene Trifyllis.

Chapter Activities

The chapter’s activities include, but are not limited to:

Support a national licensing authority to test, license and renew licenses for behavior analysts in the UAE.

Organize educational activities including seminars, workshops, presentations and conferences,
either alone or jointly with other professional organizations.

Organize networking opportunities for its members.

Serve the professional needs of behavior analysts in the UAE by working with relevant bodies.

Disseminate information to promote its mission to a wider audience by publishing bi-annual, bilingual,
online newsletters.

Disseminate information to promote its mission to a wider audience by creating a bilingual chapter website.

Attend and present at conferences/events outside the field of behavior analysis with a mission to disseminate the science.

Organize an annual business meeting to provide a forum for discussion of the affairs of the chapter. ABA-UAE has been very active, aiming to achieve the goals outlined above. We would like to outline two of our biggest achievements to date this year. The first success is the creation and development of our chapter website: https://www.abauae.org/ The second success is the organization of online continuing education events for behavior analysts, in collaboration with Emirates College for Advanced Education (ECAE; www.ecae.ac.ae), a higher education institute which has previously offered the only Verified Course Sequences in the UAE. Since May 2022, ABA-UAE has hosted 5 events, in collaboration with ECAE.