Dr. Heidi Alaudeen Alaskary has been the managing director for diversity and inclusion and partnerships, planning and development at the General Sports Authority since December 2017.
A delegation of Saudi athletes, led by Princess Reema bint Bandar, is visiting the UAE as the countdown to the Special Olympics World Games Abu Dhabi began on Tuesday.
“We are very excited about our participation next March,”Alaskary said.
Alaskary obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in speech-language pathology with a minor in psychology from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, US, between 1990 and 1994. She did her Ph.D. in speech-language pathology with a minor in linguistics from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, US, in 2000.
Alaskary began her career as a consultant at King Fahd Medical City where she established a communications and swallowing disorders department in the rehabilitation hospital.
She later joined the King Saud University (KSU) as an assistant professor in speech-language pathology and remained associated with KSU from 2001 to 2005. During the same period, she simultaneously served as an associate executive director for research and development at Prince Salman Center for Disability Research in Riyadh.
Alaskary also served as a deputy executive director for research at King Salman Center for Disability Research (KSCDR) from 2005 to 2012. From 2009 to 2010, she worked as a lecturer in the Ministry of Social Affairs’ autism diploma program. She was promoted as the director of research affairs in 2012 and later became the director of the Persons with Disabilities Employment Program (Tawafuq). She remained associated with Tawafuq until 2017.
