Dr Kamleh Khatib

Dr Kamleh Khatib is a Visiting Senior Fellow in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. She designs and tests behavioural interventions that strengthen older adults’ sense that they matter to others, and studies how interacting with conversational AI changes people’s wellbeing and their relationships with other people. She is a behavioural scientist and senior public policy practitioner. She is also the founder of AiDAM (AI for Dignity, Autonomy and Mattering), a research-led venture incubated by LSE Generate. AiDAM is developing conversational AI that supports dignity, autonomy and meaningful connection in later life.

Dr Khatib has advised on public policy for nearly two decades, in Europe and the Gulf. She began her career evaluating policy for the European Commission in Brussels and London. She then held senior policy roles in the Government of Abu Dhabi for more than a decade, including at the Abu Dhabi Executive Office, the emirate’s central government body. There she led the reform that made Regulatory Impact Assessment a required part of developing major policy across government. She also built the government’s practice of evaluating policies after they take effect, and advised government entities at the highest level of decision-making. She now advises governments and intergovernmental organisations in the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf on policy design, impact assessment and evaluation.

Dr Khatib’s connection with LSE goes back more than twenty years. She holds a PhD and an MRes in Political Science and an Executive MSc in Behavioural Science from the School. In 2026 she won the department’s prizes for best dissertation and best overall performance in the MSc.

Current appointment: November 2026 - October 2029

Dr Khatib is an experimental and quantitative researcher with advanced training in statistical modelling, game theory and causal inference. Her experimental work tests how reflecting on one’s life story affects older adults’ sense that they matter to others. She is now extending that work through a randomised controlled trial. She is also developing a framework for evaluating whether AI companions strengthen people’s relationships with others or start to replace them.

Dr Khatib taught international trade, public choice and rational choice at LSE, and microeconomics at the University of Genoa. She has also designed and taught applied courses for senior government officials in the Gulf on Regulatory Impact Assessment, public policy development and policy evaluation.

Dr Khatib has shaped how policy is designed and evaluated across Europe, the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She has carried out impact assessments and ex-post evaluations across healthcare, education, agriculture, transport, the environment and culture. She led major health policy reforms in Abu Dhabi and worked with the OECD on regulatory practice. She currently trains senior government officials in the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in impact assessment and evidence-based policymaking.

Dr Khatib welcomes engagement with researchers, practitioners, policymakers and organisations working where behavioural science meets AI, particularly on how AI affects human relationships.

She is open to consultancy on public policy design, impact assessment and evaluation, and on building institutional capacity for better regulation. Enquiries can be directed to LSE Consulting at consulting@lse.ac.uk.