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M. Shah Nawaz Chowdhury

University of Chittagong, Wageningen University & Research

ORCID iD 0000-0003-0519-1363
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About

Dr. M. Shah Nawaz Chowdhury was born in the port city Chittagong, Bangladesh. Before his PhD, Mr. Chowdhury obtained BSc and MSc in Marine Science from the Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) at the University of Chittagong. He obtained his PhD in the field of ‘Coastal Ecological Engineering’ from the Wageningen University (WUR), which was jointly supervised by the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ, Yerseke) and Wageningen Marine Research (WUR), The Netherlands. Moreover, he conducted various advanced courses related to ecosystem modelling and bioinformatics at the Wageningen University and University of Cambridge. Before his academic career at the University of Chittagong, he had a 10 years research track in issues related to coastal resources management and was involved as associate researcher in various projects until 2013. In March 2013, he joined in the permanent position of lecturer at Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS), University of Chittagong and was promoted to Associate professor in 2021. During his early academic career, he worked as visiting scholar at Arizona University, USA and worked at Prof. Dr. Donald Lightner’s lab on shellfish diseases. In 2013-14, he received a fellowship from Cornell University to conduct higher study on Marine Bio-acoustics at Friday Harbor Lab in Washington University, USA. He worked with a group of scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and actively participated in research cruises in coastal areas of the northern Pacific Ocean to learn the deep sea techniques using bio-acoustic tools. In June 2014, he received a grant from the Dutch government (NFP-NUFFIC) for investigating the eco-engineering techniques to solve the coastal erosion problem of Bangladesh. During this project, he worked with Dutch scientist consortium called ‘EcoShape’ who were investigating various aspects of ecological engineering under the research framework ‘Building with Nature’. In this project Dr. Chowdhury investigated to understand the roles of various coastal ecosystems in shaping Dutch and Bengal deltas. His research team made an innovation in developing eco-engineering techniques through artificial oyster reefs as one of the nature based solutions to protect coast from coastal erosion. Additionally, Dr. Chowdhury was involved in many national and international projects as principal investigator (PI) and Co-principal investigator (Co-PI) funded by the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock (GoB) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Those projects aimed to develop the mariculture technology to promote the blue economy of the country. His research team successfully introduced Integrated Multi-trophic Aquaculture System (IMTA) in open coastal waters of Bangladesh for enhancing marine fisheries production In Bangladesh. Dr. Chowdhury has research collaboration with Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences (VIMS), Harbour Branch Oceanographic Institution (FAU), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), U.S. Geological Survey, Louisiana State University, Wageningen University, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ, Yerseke), University of British Columbia, University of Melbourne, and Curtin University. He successfully presented his research at international conferences in USA, Europe and Asia, and published in peer-reviewed journals. Under the joint collaboration of Wageningen University and University of Chittagong, he established a base lab “ShoreLab” for monitoring eco-morphological processes and ocean observation, where more than 75 graduate and undergraduate students received hand on training to collect the various biotic and abiotic data related to ocean science. Dr. Chowdhury has published more than 40 research articles and 5 books as co-author in the field of ocean sciences. At present, Dr. Chowdhury’s research interests span issues in the field of oceanography. He is specifically interested in ocean ecosystem modelling, ocean observation systems, marine and coastal habitat (i.e. coral, seagrass, saltmarsh and mangroves) restoration, their functioning and associated ecosystem services. His current research aims to address the marine and coastal ecosystem changes and their performance in varying hydrodynamic conditions due to monsoonal climate in the northern Bay of Bengal. Dr. Chowdhury will continue his work at the Institute of Marine Sciences, University of Chittagong to serve his nation.

Employment

  • University of Chittagong Professor
    2013 - Present

Education

  • Wageningen University & Research PhD

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (22)