Hisham Cholakkal wins inaugural MBZUAI teaching award

Hisham Cholakkal is the inaugural recipient of MBZUAI’s Award for Teaching Excellence – a new initiative launched by the University’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) to celebrate outstanding contributions in education. 

The award recognizes faculty who demonstrate innovation in the classroom, responsiveness to students’ needs, and a lasting impact on their learning experience. Cholakkal, Assistant Professor of Computer Vision, joined the University soon after its 2019 launch, and quickly won acclaim from his colleagues and students. 

“In addition to a higher-than-average teaching load, Dr. Hisham has had a big positive impact on the students, which is evident from course evaluations,” said Hanan Aldarmaki, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning and Assistant Professor of Natural Language Processing. 

“He implements innovative teaching and assessment methods in his classes and students praise his teaching, saying that his classes are well-structured, he’s well prepared, passionate about the subject, and that his methods are engaging and interactive.  

“Most importantly, he clearly prioritizes his students, and they appreciate that he is caring, listens to their concerns, and provides constant support and guidance outside the classroom.” 

Cholakkal joined MBZUAI in 2020, helping to build the initial curriculum before the first cohort of students arrived. He has taught consistently since, contributing to various core courses in computer vision for the past five years. 

“This award means a lot to me,” he said. “After my Ph.D., I pursued industry research roles to put AI into real-world use, so MBZUAI is my first position that includes teaching responsibilities.  With the help of student feedback and support from the University, I have learned a lot and have tried continuously to improve my teaching. So, this award is really a great honor and I’m extremely happy to receive it. 

“We have students from so many different countries and backgrounds, and they arrive here with different experiences, subject knowledge and expectations. Some students have already published top-tier publications, while others are maybe not so familiar with certain subjects. My job as a teacher is to take this diversity and make it so that everybody is learning, nobody is bored, and all students are making meaningful progress in this rapidly evolving world of AI research.” 

Celebrating classroom excellence 

The Award for Teaching Excellence was launched this year by the CTL to celebrate faculty who go above and beyond to deliver innovative, impactful, and student-centered teaching.  

“MBZUAI is roughly five years old,” said Aldarmaki. “We put a lot of focus on our research, which is fantastic, but teaching is just as important, and we want to recognize the people who are really excelling in that. 

“Evaluating teaching is difficult, because the impact of learning is always long term. We’ve taken into consideration course evaluations, student feedback, peer observations, and recommendations from department chairs. You can see that Dr. Hisham cares a lot – he dedicates so much time and effort to his students and his preparation.” 

Department Chair and Professor of Computer Vision, Ian Reid, added: “The thing that has impressed me so much about Hisham is his regular response to feedback, using the students’ responses – both formal and informal – constantly to improve his own course materials and delivery. He really recognizes teaching and pedagogy as a key component in his role as faculty, not just the “price to be paid” for getting to do academic research.” 

Enhancing the culture  

The CTL supports faculty with training, tools and grants to strengthen MBZUAI’s teaching culture and enhance the student learning experience. 

With the introduction of the University’s new Undergraduate program, and the expansion of its Master’s and Ph.D. programs, MBZUAI’s student population rose by 403 at the start of the Fall 2025 semester in August – taking the total number of students to more than 700. Simultaneously, faculty numbers have almost doubled in recent months, from 84 to around 120. 

Despite MBZUAI having already risen to the top 10 globally in AI, computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and robotics, according to CSRankings, the new award highlights the University’s efforts to raise the bar of its teaching even further – especially with the addition of undergraduate students, who have different needs than graduates. 

“We really care about teaching, and we want to work towards even greater levels of excellence,” added Aldarmaki.  

“Faculty have a major role in the learning experience of students because they provide both instruction and mentorship. So we will do what we can to support the faculty to do an even better job, and enhance the culture around teaching and learning.”