Ms. Preetha V K

Ms. Preetha V K is the Programme Director for the BSc (Hons) Computing Science programme and Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Stirling Ras Al Khaimah Campus, UAE. She has more than 12 years of combined experience in higher education and the information technology industry. Her work focuses on academic leadership, research-informed computing education, quality assurance, industry engagement, and the development of career-ready graduates through practice-oriented learning and student mentorship.

She holds an M.Tech in Computer and Information Sciences, an MBA in Finance, and a B.Tech in Information Technology, and is currently pursuing her PhD. Her professional credentials include Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), awarded by Advance HE, UK; Certified in Cybersecurity (CC) from ISC2; and Gold-level certification in Data Analytics from NASSCOM. She has also received Institutional Credit at Postgraduate Level from the University of Stirling, UK, for two modules: Machine Learning and Representing and Manipulating Data.

In her current role, Ms. Preetha is responsible for programme leadership and coordination, teaching, academic quality assurance, accreditation support, faculty and student mentoring, and dissertation supervision. She also oversees the institutional academy partnerships with AWS, Cisco and Red Hat Academy, enabling students to pursue industry-recognised certification courses alongside their academic studies.

Her teaching expertise spans programming, machine learning, data science, software engineering, computer systems, mobile application development, and computer games development.

Her research interests include Machine learning, Explainable Artificial Intelligence(XAI), data science, Cybersecurity, Natural Language Processing, Decentralised Finance and related emerging technologies. Her scholarly contributions include Scopus-indexed journal articles, peer-reviewed book chapters, IEEE conference papers, and presentations at international conferences, reflecting the interdisciplinary and practical relevance of her research.

Ms. Preetha has also received a Certificate of Recognition from the IT Department of the UAE Ministry of Education for her outstanding contribution to IT operations and support.

Ms. Preetha is committed to creating an engaging and future-focused learning environment that connects academic knowledge with industry practice. Through academic leadership and student-centred mentorship, she supports students in becoming ethical, adaptable, and globally competent technology professionals.