Dr. Abeln received his B.A. in History from The University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude. He received both a Ph.D. in Management and M.Phil. in International Relations from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Rotary Foundation Scholar.

His doctorate work on international labour economics was under the supervision of Professor W.A. Brown, Chairman of the Cambridge University Economics Department. He has an extensive international academic background having served as President, Dean and Associate Dean including leading institutions in USA, UK, Australia and Asia, as well as serving as a member of faculty.

He has developed new academic programs and curriculum for undergraduate, postgraduate masters and doctoral programs, while also promoting liberal arts, STEM and business education and interdisciplinary learning. Dr. Abeln was instrumental in negotiating 300+ partnership agreements between university and industry, government and other academic institutions to promote collaboration.

Dr. Abeln began his academic career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was appointed Director of the MBA Program at the MIT Sloan School. After MIT, Dr. Abeln was appointed Associate Dean at Georgetown University where he led the MBA and Executive MBA and also served as Associate Dean at University of Texas at Austin, where he led five MBA Programs with enrolment of 800 students, Executive Education programs and the initiative to develop a new residential executive education center on campus.

Dr. Abeln served as a member of the Faculty of Management at the University of Cambridge and Deputy Dean of the Judge Business School, where he led Executive Education and developed the EMBA. He was Dean and Professor of the Business School at University of Adelaide, one of Australia’s Group of 8 institutions and Dean at the Asian Institute of Technology. He also served as Visiting Professor of Management at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor.