Shaheen Motala-Timol is a chemistry-trained higher education professional and quality assurance practitioner. She holds a PhD in Polymer Chemistry. She is presently heading the Regulatory Affairs and Accreditation Division at the Higher Education Commission, the authority that regulates the higher education sector in Mauritius. She also works as an independent higher education consultant for government agencies and serves as an external specialist for international regulatory agencies, such as the Oman Academic Accreditation Authority, the Malta National Commission for Further and Higher Education, and the Turkish Higher Education Quality Council, amongst others. Under the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) Africa Fellowship, she conducted an internal assessment of the centres of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. In 2018-2019, Dr Timol was a member of the Executive Committee of the Global Young Academy, where she led the communication portfolio. She was a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow under the Fulbright Exchange Activity and spent the 2016-2017 academic year at Pennsylvania State University, USA, researching different areas of international higher education. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for International Higher Education, Boston College. Her current research addresses the challenges and opportunities of cross-border higher education and internationalization.