Dr. Md. Ashraful Alam, New Director of IQAC, UAP

Dr. Md. Ashraful Alam, Professor of the Department of Civil Engineering, has been appointed as the Director of the Institutional Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC), UAP. He will take over from the immediate past director, Prof. Dr. Aloke Kumar Saha.

Dr. Alam joined UAP in 2017 as an Assistant Professor. Before joining UAP, he was working as a senior lecturer at the Department of Civil Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Malaysia, since 2011. Dr Alam was Head of the Department (2021-2023) and Masters Coordinator (2019-2021) at UAP. He was also worked as Postgraduate Coordinator (3.5 years) at College of Graduate Studies, UNITEN. During post-graduation, Dr. Alam worked as a research assistant, a part-time lecturer, and a part-time structural engineer at the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Malaya. After graduation, he worked as a structural engineer at Texture Consultant, Dhaka, till 2004.

Dr. Alam is highly interested in and actively involved with product- and industry-based research. The main research interests of Dr. Alam includes strengthening structures under static and fatigue loads, natural fibre composite laminates for structural applications, non-linear analysis of strengthened structures, and light-weight slab systems. He innovated anchor and embedded connector systems, including comprehensive design guidelines for flexure and shear strengthening of structures to eliminate debonding of plates and high-strength natural fibre composite plates for strengthening of structures. He published more than 70 research articles in journals and conferences. And secured more than six research medals from national and international research exhibitions, including ITEX, MTE, and UNIREX. Dr. Alam directed several research grants from the Ministry of Education (Bangladesh), Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (MOSTI, Malaysia) as a principal investigator and member. He also secured grants from the university and collaborators. Dr Alam had supervised 16 postgraduate candidates (2 PhD, 14 Masters) as main supervisor.

Dr. Alam is a fellow (life time) of IEB, Bangladesh; an associate member of ASCE, USA; and a graduate member of ICE, UK. He is actively involved as a member of various research centres and the technical committee of conferences. He is the reviewer of ISI-indexed journals and national and international conferences. Dr. Alam is closely attached to the industry. He did structural designs for projects in Bangladesh and overseas. He was the checker of structural design at the University of Malaya Consultancy Unit.