Prof Abdul Hannan Chowdhury

Dr. Abdul Hannan Chowdhury is the Pro Vice Chancellor of Eastern University. He was the former Professor of the School of Business (May 2005- May 2014) and served as the Executive Director, External Relations (January 2014- May 2014), Dean of the School of Business (2011-2013), Director of the BBA Program, (2007-2012), Member of the Syndicate (2011-2013) and the Director of Department of Career and Professional Development Services (CPDS) of North South University (NSU). He has 27 years of teaching and research experience with various reputed institutions in Bangladesh, Canada, and the United States of America. He has worked as a faculty member at the University of Windsor, Canada (2002-2005), Northeastern University, Boston, USA (1999-2001), University of Calgary, Canada (2001-2002) and at the Islamic University, Bangladesh (1988-1992) and (1992-1997, on study leave). In 2014, he was made a visiting Professor of the School of Economics and Management at the Yunnan Normal University, China. He was awarded Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Northeastern University, Boston, USA in 1999 and M.S. in Operations Research from Northeastern University, USA in 1996. He has earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Statistics from Jahangirnagar University in the year 1986 and 1987, respectively.

Dr. Chowdhury taught Business Statistics, Operations Management, Quantitative Analysis and Total Quality Management courses in the MBA and EMBA programs. He is conducting research in the areas of Quantitative Analysis, Business Statistics, Statistical Quality Control, Total Quality Management, Operations Management and Social Business. He also served as a faculty of the Executive MBA Program for Managers and Professionals at the Centre for Executive Education at the University of Windsor, Canada. Dr. Chowdhury taught Applied Statistics course at the Quality Certification Program of Saint Clair College, Canada, offered by the American Society for Quality (ASQ).

In 2001, he was awarded Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) Industrial post-doctoral fellowship and completed his research at the University of Calgary, Canada in 2002. The supporting agencies for his research grant include PIMS, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, Nortel Networks, and Statistical Consulting and Research Laboratory (StatCaR) of the University of Calgary. He was also a recipient of partial grant for his research from the National Science Foundation (NSF) of USA through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Washington DC, USA. In addition, he was a recipient of both Research and Conference Grants from the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) of Northeastern University, USA.

Dr. Chowdhury served as a Team Leader of INSPIRE project (50 thousand GBP) on Environmental Management funded by British Council, UK in collaboration with Coventry University and NSU (2009-2013). He led a project with HEC, France to train faculty members of NSU on Social Business (2010-14). He was able to facilitate overseas training for many NSU faculty members in the UK, France and other European Countries. Dr. Chowdhury was an acting Team Member in the Investment Climate Fund project financed by International Finance Corporation (IFC) of World Bank. He was a member of the team in Green Banking- a project funded by Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP), University Grants Commission (UGC) of Bangladesh. He is also an acting Team Member in several projects funded by Ministry of Science and Information Communication Technology, Government of Bangladesh. He is the team leader of a project “Roadmap to One Asia” at Eastern University with One Asia Foundation, Japan. Dr. Chowdhury led a team at NSU to obtain a grant (one million USD) from Institute of Sustainable Communities (ISC), USA to establish a Center called Environment, Health and Safety (EHS+) Center. He is a team member of the Institutional Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) of Eastern University- a project funded by World Bank through HEQEP, UGC of Bangladesh. Over the years, he was able to raised more than 45 million BDT for organizing National Career Fairs, Social Business Forums, Youth Convention, Academic Conclave and International Conferences in different disciplines.

Dr. Chowdhury has organized many seminars, workshops, and conferences on relevant issues. He has served as the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Career Fair 2007-2011. He was the member of the organizing committee of the 9^th South Asian Management Forum (2006) held in Bangladesh in collaboration with the Association of the Management Development Institutions in South Asia (AMDISA), India. He was the Executive Chair of the International Conference on Statistical Science (ICSS 2008) held in Bangladesh in collaboration with Carleton University, Canada and International Conference on Knowledge Globalization (ICKG 2010) held in Bangladesh in collaboration with Suffolk University, USA. Moreover, he is a member of various professional organizations, committees in Bangladesh, Canada, France, Germany and USA. Dr. Chowdhury edited many papers in different national, international journals and conference proceedings. He has attended in many national and international conferences as invited speaker and served as the reviewer of several scientific journals. He was the editor of North South Business Review (NSBR), a Journal of School of Business of NSU (2011-2013).

Dr. Chowdhury has more recently added the area of Social Business academia, researches, practices to his expertise and he has extensive experiences of working directly with the Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus in promoting the idea of Social Business globally. Being distinctively invited, he attended Global Social Business Summit (GSBS) in Germany (2010), Austria (2011), Austria (2012) and Malaysia (2013). He has organized numerous conferences, seminars, workshops, symposiums and prestigious events on Social Business including the U.S. Department of State supporting the First South Asian Youth Leaders’ Summit on Social Business in Dhaka in 2012. Dr. Chowdhury is the Founder and President of Professional Society for Social Business (PSSB) and led the Social Business Forum 2012 and 2013, Asia’s biggest Social Business Forum, as the Executive Chair.

He served as the Patron of the Social Business Youth Convention (SBYC) 2014 and currently serving as the Patron of the Social Business Academic Conclave (SBAC) 2015. He is the Chief Advisor of the South Asian Youth Society (SAYS) - a platform for youth in Asia and the Advisor of the Ethics Club Bangladesh. Dr. Chowdhury was the invited speaker in many international conferences in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Malaysia, Germany, and Austria. He is also actively working for poverty alleviation and the current Secretary General of Organization of Population and Poverty Alleviation (OPPA), Bangladesh. Dr. Chowdhury was the member of the International Scientific Committee of the GSBS Research Conferences held in Malaysia in 2013 and Mexico in 2014. Currently, he is the member of the Planning and Organizing Committee and International Scientific Committee of the GSBS Academia Conference 2015 to be held in Berlin, Germany in November 2015.

    Dr. Chowdhury’s publications have appeared in Journal of Quality and Reliability Engineering International, Journal of Quality Engineering, International Journal of Industrial Engineering, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, International Journal of Trade and Economic Development, International Journal of Economics and Finance, South Asian Journal of Management, Journal of Knowledge Globalization, International Journal of Electronic Government Research, Journal of Business Administration, Journal of Business Education and Accreditation, Pakistan Journal of Statistics, North South Business Review, East West Journal of Business and Social Sciences, World Journal of Business and Social Sciences, Social Science Review, The Business Review, and Journal of Statistical Studies. He has published more than 50 papers and two books on Statistics and presented more than 40 papers in different international conferences. Notably, he is the only son of a mother who was awarded “Ratna Garva” in 2010.