Professor Nora Ann Colton, Dean of the Royal Docks Business School (RDBS), has over two decades of worldwide experience in higher education at private and public institutions.  The span of her expertise includes business strategy, organizational development, international collaborations and learning and teaching in institutions of higher education.  At the Royal Docks Business School, Nora is responsible for the strategic management of the School.  Since taking the position of Dean, she has led on a number of initiatives to enhance the student experience.  She has also worked on staff development at all levels.

Her work is driven by an unwavering passion for building innovation and ensuring excellence in delivery of projects and programmes on behalf of RDBS. Prior to becoming Dean, she was the Associate Dean and Leader of International Collaborations at RDBS where she led on the internationalization of the School by building collaborations and joint degree programmes with other institutions for the Business School.  She actively developed partnerships with outstanding institutions throughout Asia.

Carrying further her efforts of communicating with an international audience, she has been publishing internationally, speaking on issues in higher education as well as Middle East Economics.  She has spoken in the past year at higher education institutions in Brazil, China and India. Before coming to University of East London and RDBS, she was a Professor and Chair of the Economics and Business Department at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, USA. She received her Ph.D. from St. Antony's College, Oxford University, U.K. She is a specialist on Middle Eastern economies and speaks Arabic. She has conducted fieldwork in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. She was a Carnegie Scholar and a visiting Professor on two occasions at AUB. She is the author of numerous journal articles concerned with Middle Eastern economics.  She is also the co-author of a book with Elsevier Press entitled Middle East Finance: Missed-opportunities or Future Prospects and has a book forthcoming with Palgrave-Macmillan on the political economy of Yemen.  She is the editor of a book series on Middle East Economics through Palgrave-Macmillan.

Based in London, she is associated with several executive training programmes, professional bodies and industry organizations. She has strong ties to Lebanon and the Middle East.  She is married with four children.  Her hobbies are traveling, hiking and playing tennis.  She is also an active member of the Rotary Club of London and involved in various charity activities.

Leader of International Partnerships.

International economics and business; institutional economics; Middle East economies and development; international labour migration; trade liberalisation in the Middle East; political economy of the Middle East; factor mobility and economy wide structural change.   Her field research has taken her to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.

• International Business Management MSc
• International Accounting and Finance MSc

• International Finance
• International Business Strategy

• Book, Political Economy of Yemen (forthcoming: Palgrave-Macmillan Fall 2010)
• Research Paper Series, Social Inequality/Social Stratification in the Gulf States, Centre for Global Governance, London School of Economics (Forthcoming)
• Yemen: A Collapsed Economy, Middle East Journal, Summer 2010, Vol. 64, No.3
• The International Political Economy of Labour Migration to the GCC States in Migration and the Gulf, Viewpoints, edited vol. by the Middle East Institute, February 2010
• Corruption and Absorption Capacity: The case of Yemen (forthcoming)
• Revisiting the Dubai Model (Forthcoming)
• FTZs as a mechanism for Privatisation (Forthcoming)

Books:

• Middle East Finance: Missed-opportunities or Future Prospects?, editor with Simone Neamie (New York: Elsevier 2005)

Chapters in Books:

• Economic and Political Realities of Labor Migration: the Case of Yemen, Yemen Into the Twenty First Century: Continuity and Change, eds. Kamil Mahdi, Anna Wuerth and Helen Lackner(Reading: Ithaca Press, 2007)
• Foreign Direct Investment in Tunisia: Role of the Free Trade Agreement with European Union, Money and Finance in the Middle East: Missed Opportunities or Future Prospects? eds. Nora Ann Colton and Simon Neamie (New York: Elsevier 2005).
• Economy and Economics Institutions, Enclyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, ed. By Richard C. Martin (Macmillan Press,2003)
• Between 'Supply Shocked' Markets: The Case of Jordanian and Palestinian Returnees, Structural Flaws in the Middle East Peace Process, ed. J.W. Wright (Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2002)
• The Maghrebi Economies as Emerging Markets?, North Africa in Transition: Socio-Economic and Political Change in the Post-Cold War Era, ed. Yahia H. Zoubir (University of Florida Press, 1999)

Articles:

• A Perspective on the Future Dollar-Euro Exchange Rate: Implications for the Peripheral Mediterranean Countries, Collaborative project with Dr. Simone Neame, Institute of Money and Banking, American University of Beirut (Thunderbird International Business Review, March-April 2003, vol. 45, 2)
• The Dominant Role of Migration in the Development of the Republic of Yemen, Journal of Critical Studies of Iran and the Middle East (Spring 1995)
• The Silent Victims: Yemeni Migrants Return Home, translated into Arabic,Political Studieson Yemen, 1990-1994, edited by Abdu Hamood Al-Sharif,(Sana'a: American Institute for Yemeni Studies, 1996)
• Homeward Bound: Yemeni Return Migration, International Migration Review Vol.27, No. 4 (Winter 1993)
• The Silent Victims: Yemeni Migrants Return Home, The Oxford International Review Vol. III, No.1 (Winter 1991)
• Professional Journals and Magazines:
• Advice for the Next President on International Trade, Drew Magazine, December 2008
• Why Reform Programs Don't Alleviate Poverty: A View from Arabia, Daily Star, Beirut, September 27, 2001
• Oil vs. Nonoil Growth: the GCC in the 1990s,Global Assessment, Special Issue, September 1996
• The North African Miracle, Global Assessment, Special Issue, May 1996

• Editor of a book series on Middle East Economics and Business with Palgrave-Macmillan Press.