Fellow

Dr. AM Harun-ar-Rashid (Deceased)

(Fellow, 1978)

Professor A. M. Harun-ar-Rashid was born on 1st of May, 1933 in a remote village in Barisal district, Bangladesh where his father, Late Professor Moksud Ali, A.D.P.I., was the first person to have received postgraduate education in science.

He had a brilliant academic career in the school in Krishnanagar and College in Dhaka where he never stood second in any examination. He obtained B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in Physics from the University of Dhaka in 1953 standing First in the First Class and M.Sc. degree in Physics in 1954 again standing First in the First Class. For his outstanding academic achievements, he received prizes and honors in his academic career in the School, College and the University. Professor Rashid obtained the Ph.D. degree in Theoretical Physics from the University of Glasgow in 1960 working under Professor R. G. Moorhouse and Professor B.H. Bransden.

Professor Rashid was a Lecturer in Physics, University of Dhaka, 1955-1962, Senior Scientific Officer and Principal Scientific Officer, Atomic Energy Centre, Dhaka 1962 - 1967. Professor of Theoretical Physics and Director, Institute of Physics, University of Islamabad, 1967-1971. Professor of Physics, Chairman of the Department of Theoretical Physics and Director, Bose Centre for Advanced Study and Research, University of Dhaka, 1972-1979. He was Chairman, Department of Physics, University of Dhaka, 1979-1981 and Director, Computer Centre and Professor of Physics, University of Dhaka.

Professor Rashid received the Raja Kalinarayan Scholarship  awarded by the Dhaka University to the most outstanding graduate every year; awarded the Ekushey Padak (Twenty-first February Medal) for Education in 1991 by the Government of Bangladesh.

He received training in Reactor Physics in 1956 at the Atomic Enegry Research Establishment, Harwell, U. K. He spent time as Visiting Scientist at the Institute for Theoretische Kernphysik, Karlsruhe in 1963 and 1964. He was also a Visiting Scientist at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste during the periods, February 1966 - July 1966, January 1968 - August 1968 and January 1974-June 1974. He was a Visiting Scientist at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London from October, 1971 till September, 1972. He has been an Associate and later a Senior Associate of ICTP, Trieste since 1969 and visited the Centre for three months each in 1969, 1970, 1985 and 1993. He was a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Particle Theory, Department of Physics, University of Texas in Austin USA, in December 1975.

He conducted research on a problem of K-meson-nucleon scattering using Tamm-Dancoff Approximation in field theory which was published in the Nuovo Cimento. He participated in the first Scottish Summer School on “Dispersion Relations” in Edinburgh in 1960 as well as in the first ever Summer Seminar on Theoretical Physics held at Trieste in 1962 organized by Professor A. Salam. Prior to 1962, Professor Rashid’s interest was in photoproduction theory of vector mesons in which experimental work had not yet started and with Professor M. J. Moravcsik, he was able to formulate the first consistent phenomenological theory of spin-1 meson photoproduction including its multiplet structure. But soon under the strong influence of Professor Salam, started work on group theoretic symmetry schemes and in 1966, he along with Professor C. Fronsdal gave the first detailed calculation of hadron form factors according to SL(6, c) published in the Phys. Rev. Letts. as well as the matrix elements of operators of class-1 Representations of SL (n.c) which was published in the Journal of Mathematical Physics.

The symmetry scheme based on the SL (6,c) theory subsequently ran into heavy weather like all higher symmetry schemes and Professor Rashid switched his attention for a time to Reggeized SU (6) × SU(6) model with applications to meson-baryon and baryon baryon scattering. But since the difficulties of the higher symmetry schemes were all too apparent, he soon started work on Current Algebra, the Veneziano model and the Effective Lagrangian method in which he published a large number of papers during the early seventies. At this time his work on broken chiral and conformal symmetry was published in the Physical Review, Nuovo Cimento and the Annals of Physics.

The liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971 produced for him a serious set back and for a time he was rootless as he resigned from his job at the University of Islamabad where he was then a Professor of Physics. However, it took him some time to settle down in his own country in the University of Dhaka and there during the three years (1974 to 1977), he produced with his students some out-standing work in solid state physics. He started work on energy band structure calculation of KCL crystal and soon developed an excellent method using LCAO and OPW techniques in collaboration with Dr. S. M. Mujibur Rahman and this work as well as his work on Effective Lagrangians have been published in the Physical Reviews.

Since 1988, Professor Rashid was engaged in the study of the Skyrme model in which he has published a paper on “Rotating Solitons in General Relativity”and he has also worked on nucleon nucleus scattering using the Dirac equation at medium energies.

He has also been interested in topological field theories in which he has pub¬lished a paper with Fronsdal and Flato and has published mimeographed lecture notes on “Geometrical Methods in Physics” from UCLA. He has worked on the generalised couplings of the WWV vertex and has brought out a paper on this subject.

He participated in the Scottish Summer School on String Theory in 1985. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of California in Los Angales in 1991. Professor Rashid was awarded the best Science Writer Award by the Government of Bangladesh in 2005.

Professor A.M. Harun-ar-Rashid had the honour of being a member of various academic bodies such as : He was made a Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences in 1992; Member of the Senate, University of Dhaka, 1974 - 1977; Member of the Syndicate, University of Dhaka, 1974 - 1977; Member, Executive Council, Bangla Academy, 1985 - 1987; Member, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh; Fellow, Bangladesh Academy of Sciences; Member, National Curriculum Committee as well as of Examination Reforms Committee, Govt. of Bangladesh; Member, The American Physical Society; Vice-President, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 1992 - 1993.