MI

Md Saidul Islam

Nanyang Technological University, William & Mary, York University

ORCID iD 0000-0002-6217-0430
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About

I’m Md Saidul Islam, Associate Professor and the Post-Graduate Coordinator of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University Singapore. I obtained my Ph.D. degree in Sociology from York University in Canada in 2008. I taught at York University and the College of William and Mary in the United States prior to moving to NTU. I also worked in the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as a Visiting Scholar, and at the University of Nottingham as a Visiting Research Associate.

Within the two broad fields of my specialization, environmental sociology, and international development, I'm particularly known for my research on food, climate change, and sustainability. I have published seven books and over four dozen peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on these subjects, among them are the book Confronting the Blue Revolution: Industrial Aquaculture and Sustainability in the Global South (University of Toronto Press, 2014), and a co-authored article on sustainable seafood in the journal Science. Globally known as a food and sustainability scholar, I have been invited to deliver keynote talks around the world, for example, at the Global Economic Forum, Science Summit at the UN General Ammesbly, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Nottingham, and the University of British Columbia. I received various service and research awards such as the Early Investigator Award 2015 (Canadian Sociological Association), Outstanding Scientist Award (Malaysia), and Awards to Scholarly Publication Program (Humanities and Social Science Federation of Canada). At NTU, I’m the founding Coordinator of the Environment and Sustainability Research Cluster, and I served the cluster as a coordinator for 10 years (2011-2021). I’m the past Chair of the Sociology of Development Cluster, Canadian Sociological Association (2019-2021).

For more than a decade, I’ve been tirelessly working to move the areas of food and agri/aquaculture forward, making some core and sustained contributions to my fields. I have advanced conceptual and theoretical frameworks such as “twin-driven commodity chain” (Islam 2008), “double-risk society”, “neoliberal paradox”, “development as a historical project of power” (Islam 2013), “sociology of disasters and a plural coexistence model” (Islam and Si Hui 2015), “Islamic Ecological Paradigm” (Islam 2012), “transboundary haze and plural environmental governance” (Islam et al. 2016), and “Modernization of Ecology” (Islam 2022). My first two solo-authored books generated a review article published in Nature and Culture journal (Hall 2016), while an interview with me generated an article published in World Future Review (Docksai 2014).

My current projects include “The rise of ‘green’ movements in the global environmental politics”, supported by a Tier-1 grant from the Ministry of Education, Singapore; and “Developing a Public-Private Partnership by Crowdfunding to Create Sustainable Plastics Upcycling Technologies”, an ACE (Accelerating Creativity and Excellence) Grant, funded by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW).

References:
Docksai, R. 2014. “The Hidden Costs of Seafood: An Interview with Muhammad Saidul Islam.” World Future Review 6(3): 346–349.
Hall, Thomas D. 2016. “Environment, Power, Development in the Global South: Revolutions, Blue & Green.” Nature and Culture 11(2): 215-228 [A review essay based on Dr. Islam’s first two books]
Islam, M. S. 2008. “From pond to plate: Towards a twin-driven commodity chain in Bangladesh shrimp aquaculture.” Food Policy 33(3):209-223.
Islam, M. S. 2012. “Old philosophy, new movement: The rise of the Islamic Ecological Paradigm in the discourse of environmentalism.” Nature and Culture 7(1):72-94.
Islam, M. S. 2013. Development, Power and the Environment: Neoliberal Paradox in the Age of Vulnerability. New York, London: Routledge.
Islam, M. S. and L. Si Hui. 2015. “When ‘Nature’ Strikes: A Sociology of Climate Change and Disaster Vulnerabilities in Asia.” Nature and Culture 10(1): 57-80.
Islam, Md Saidul, Yap Hui Pei and Shrutika Mangharam. 2016. “Trans-boundary haze pollution in Southeast Asia: Sustainability through Plural Environmental Governance.” Sustainability 8 (499): 1-13.
Islam, Md Saidul. 2022. “Certification regimes in the global agro-food system and the transformation of nature-society relationship: Ecological modernization or modernization of ecology?” Nature and Culture 17(1): 87-110.

Employment

  • Nanyang Technological University Associate Professor
    2009 - Present
  • William & Mary Visiting Assistant Professor
    2008 - 2009

Education

  • York University PhD
    2002 - 2008

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (59)