Fellow

Prof. Dr. A A Mamun

(Fellow, 2017)

A A Mamun, son of Darbesh Ali and Rizia Ali, was born on 31 December 1966 (‘A’ and ‘A’ were not spelled out at time of his name given) in Dhamrai, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He passed the Secondary School Cirtificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Cirtificate (HSC) examinations with first division from Khushura Abass Ali High School (Dhamrai Upzila, Dhaka) and Government Science College (Tejgaon Thana, Dhaka) in 1981 and 1983, respectively. He passed BSc (Hons.) and MSc (Thesis) in physics with first class first positions from Jahangirnagar University in 1986 (held in 1989) and 1987 (held in 1991), respectively. He carried out his thesis work on plasma physics under the supervision of the 1st Bangladeshi plasma physicist, Prof. M. Salimullah. On the basis of his extra-ordinary academic results, and performances in other activities at the University, Mamun was given an opportunity to represent Jahangirnagar University and at the same time Bangladesh in “International Youth Village Program-89” held in Fokouka (Japan), where he met with Naruhito, the crown prince (of that time) of Japan. He joined the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission as a scientific officer on 02 May 1991 and married Khurshida Khayer (daughter of Abul Khayer and Mahmuda Khayer) on 25 December 1991. He worked at the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission ~2 years (02 May 1991- 04 April 1993).

A A Mamun joined Jahangirnagar University as a lecturer of physics on 04 April 1993. He then finally awarded the Commonwealth Scholarship (for which he applied during his work at the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission) for his PhDstudy at the University of St. Andrews. He thus moved to St Andrews on 27 September 1993 under extra-ordinary leave from the Jahangirnagar University. He received a PhD degree in plasma physics from the University of St. Andrews in 1996 under the direct supervision of the world renowned plasma physicist, Prof. R. Alan Cairns. He returned Bangladesh on 28 September 1996, and rejoined the University just after completion of his PhD. He has built up a strong and productive plasma physics group at the Department of Physics at Jahangirnagar University. Dr. Mamun, after his PhD, and after working nearly 3 years at Jahangirnagar University as Assistant and Associate Professors, moved to the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany) to carry out his post-doctoral research in dusty plasmas first as an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow, and later as a Max Planck Research Fellow. Prof. Mamun was also awarded a Commonwealth Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to carry out the advanced research in strongly coupled dusty plasma at the University of St. Andrews.

Prof. Mamun has made a substantial contribution towards the published literature of nonlinear plasma physics. He has already published over 400 research articles in peer-reviewed international journals. He is also the co-author of a textbook on introductory dusty plasma physics published by Taylor & Francis (CRC Press, Florida), which is now being used as a textbook of many western universities like UK, Germany, USA, etc. To know the quality of his research work, it should be noted that the total citations of his research work already exceeded 15100 with h-index 54 and i10-index 260 [to know the updated citation indices along with title & abstract of each published research work of Prof. A A Mamun, please visit his Google Scholar Citation link.

Prof. Mamun was awarded a number of prestigious national and international awards for his outstanding and pioneering contribution in physics. The most important awards are as follows:

• The Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award-2009 (awarding ceremony) in recognition of his past accomplishments in research and teaching.
• The BAS Gold Medal-2011 (awarding ceremony) in Physical Sciences (senior group) in recognition of his excellent work in his field of research, and his contribution in science and technoly in Bangladesh.
• The BAS Gold Medal-2004 (awarding ceremony) in Physical Sciences (jounir group) in recognition of his excellent work in his field of research, and his contribution in the general to the progress of physical sciences in Bangladesh.
• TWAS (The World Academy of Sciences) Young Physicist Prize-2006 in recognition for his contribution in physics in the 3rd world countries.
• The UGC (University Grants Commission Bangladesh) Award-2008 in Physical and Mathematical Sciences for his orginal research publication in plasma physics.
• The ITCPP (held in Internal Centre for Theoretical Physics,Triesete, Italy) Young Physicist Medal and Cirtificate-2000 in recognition of his pioneering contribution to the study of nonlinear phenomena in complex plasmas.
• The Pothikrit (pioneer) Science Award-2019 by the Pothikrit Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh in reconiftion of his notable contribution in science.
• The United Group Outstanding Paper Award-2013: The eleven prizes for the 11 papers published by Prof. Mamun's research students with him (out of 21 outstanding papers) have been awarded independently.
• The Best Young Scientist Prize-1992 (unger 35 years of age) by the Bangladesh Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS), Dhaka, Bangladesh for the best research presentation in 17th in Anual Bangladesh Science Coneference-1992.

Prof. Mamun gave many plenary and invited talks as well as chaired many scientific sessions in many international conferences held in different parts of the globe. On the basis of his dedication in science, Prof. Mamun has been honored by a number of honorary appointments:

• The Director of `Wazed Miah Science Research Centre’ at Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh from 18 February 2019 to date.
• The Member of the governing bodies of ‘National Museum of Science and Technology’ as well as of ‘Bangladesh National Scientific and Technical Documentation Centre' from 01 January 2019 to date.
• The Guest Editor of a special issue in “Journal of Plasma Physics” published by the Cambridge University Press, and of a special issue in the journal: “Review of Modern Plasma Physics“ published by the Springer Nature (Japan).
• The Associate Editor of the Journal: "Review of Modern Plasma Physics" published by the Springer Nature (Japan).
• The Editorial Board Member of the journal: Advances in Astrophysics published by Isaac Scientific Publishing (Hong Kong) from 01 January 2019 to date.
• The Regular Associate of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Trieste, Italy) for the first time from 01 January 1998 to 31 December 2002, and for the 2nd time from 01 January 2009 to 31 December 2013).

Prof. Mamun is the elected fellows of "The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS)", Trieste, Italy; the "Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS)", Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the "Bangladesh Physical Society (BPS)", Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has been elected the president of ‘Jahangirnagar University Teachers Association (JUTA)’ for the years of 2012, 2020 and 2021. He has been selected vice president of the ‘Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers' Association (FBUTA)’ from 01 April 2020 to 30 March 2022. He has been elected the senate member of Jahangirnagar University since 2016. He was the member of the jury boards for selecting the "Best Young Scientist Prize-2011" (meeting was held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, 19 May 2011) and for selecting "Chandrasekhar Prize-2018" (meeting was held in Kanazawa, Japan, 12 November 2018).

It may be noted that on the basis of the report of Prof. Ioannidis and his two collaborators (Stanford University, USA) published in the journal “PLOS Biology” on 16th October 2020, Prof. Mamun is one of top 2% scientists (position:130 out of 43,218 who are in top 2% scientists) working in the fields of fluids and plasmas as well as top 2% scientists (position: 28,781 out of 1,59,624 who are in top 2% scientists) working in all branches of sciences including medical and engineering sciences.

Prof. Mamun, because of his excellent academic background and extra-ordinary research and teaching experiences, was offered many attractive permanent positions by many research institutes or universities of western countries like Germany, UK, USA, etc. But he declined to have those permanent positions because of his firm commitment or strong determination to serve his own country (Bangladesh), and because of his deep love for his students, his village, and university campus, where he has been grown up.

He visited Japan, Thailand, India, Malaysia, Iran, Singapore, Italy, UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece, Portugal, Austria, and Netherland.  

Address: Department of Physics, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka-1342, Bangladesh. E-mail:  mamun_phys@juniv.edu