Dr. Emran El-Badawi is program director and associate professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Houston. He has designed, implemented and assessed degree programs in the Humanities and Sciences. These include degrees in Middle East Studies, Religious Studies and interdisciplinary studies in Energy, Development and Sustainability, with a focus on US-Middle East relations. Dr. El-Badawi has received numerous awards for his work and research. Furthermore, his professional management and scholarly projects have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for several organizations.

Dr. El-Badawi is also the founding executive director and treasurer of the International Qur'anic Studies Association, which is the world's first learned society dedicated to secular, critical and respectful scholarship on the Qur'an. Part of IQSA’s goal is to bridge the divide between scholars in the west and those in Muslim majority countries through international conferences.

Dr. El-Badawi has published in English as well as Arabic and has made dozens of national as well as international media appearances, including for The New York Times, Al-Jazeera and Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne (ARTE).  His professional work and scholarship have won several awards. These include honorable acclaim by the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize for his book on The Qur'an and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions. His current research projects include a book on Arab thought between Nationalism and Political Islam, as well as new history textbook on the Middle East.

Dr. El-Badawi has lived and studied in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the US. He has a bachelors degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University, and he received his Ph.D. with honors in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago.