Assoc Prof Dr Shamini K. Ragavan
Dr Shamini K. Ragavan, SFHEA, is an internationally experienced legal academic and practitioner with more than twenty-five years of professional, teaching, and leadership experience across five jurisdictions: Malaysia, England, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Singapore. Dual-qualified as a Barrister (Malaysia) and Solicitor (England & Wales), she brings a rigorous, multidisciplinary perspective to commercial and company law, corporate governance, and legal ethics. Her early legal career involved litigating complex commercial and civil matters before moving into academia, where she has contributed extensively to the advancement of legal education and academic governance across leading institutions.
Dr Ragavan has served in substantive academic and leadership roles in both the UK and UAE, including at Newcastle Law School and the University of Birmingham Dubai, where she is currently Associate Professor of Law. Across these institutions, she has directed major programmes, including the LL.M in International Commercial Law and the Social Sciences, Business and Law Foundation, and has led the Centre for Employability, Professional Legal Education and Research (CePLER) Dubai. In these capacities, she has established impactful partnerships with international law firms, courts, regulators, and professional organisations, and developed innovative skills-based initiatives grounded in global professional standards.
Her expertise spans curriculum development, programme validation, and regulatory compliance, particularly within the UAE’s evolving higher education sector. She contributes to national quality assurance through her role as a reviewer for a major higher-education regulator in Abu Dhabi and serves as an external examiner for universities in both the UK and UAE. These appointments reflect her recognised expertise in academic standards, institutional governance, and sector-wide educational quality.
Dr Ragavan’s professional engagements extend across the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Gulf region. She has delivered invited lectures, keynote presentations, and specialist workshops on legal education, governance, ethics, and professional skills at academic conferences, law faculties, and professional training programmes. These engagements underscore her international reputation as a thoughtful, articulate, and analytically rigorous speaker whose expertise is sought across jurisdictions and disciplines.
A recognised innovator in legal education, Dr Ragavan developed the award-winning International Student Intensive Guidance and Development Programme (ISIGP), which has received multiple commendations for excellence in teaching and student support. She is a Senior Fellow of Advance HE and a Distinguished Associate of the Institute of Educational Leadership (University of Malaya). Her research covers legal education, the law of evidence, corporate governance, and values-centred professional ethics, and she serves as a peer reviewer for leading academic journals in the UK.
With a career defined by international breadth, regulatory insight, and a strong commitment to academic excellence, Dr Ragavan brings principled and strategic leadership to boards, advisory committees, and organisations seeking authoritative expertise in law, higher education, and governance.