Mohammad Ataul Karim

Mohammad Ataul Karim
Born	(1953-05-04) May 4, 1953 Barlekha Upazila, Sylhet, East Bengal, Pakistan (now in Bangladesh)
Citizenship	Bangladesh / USA
Nationality	Bangladeshi / American
Fields	Optical computing Electrical engineering
Institutions	University of Arkansas at Little Rock Wichita State University University of Dayton University of Tennessee at Knoxville City University of New York Old Dominion University
Alma mater	Faujdarhat Cadet College MC College University of Dacca University of Alabama
Known for	Biophysics Non Linear Image Processing Optical computing Electro-optical displays Optical & Hybrid Electro-optical Systems Design

Mohammad Ataul Karim (born May 4, 1953) is a Bangladeshi American scientist and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor^[1][2][3] of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with expertise in electro-optical systems, optical computing, and pattern recognition. His citation record has an h-index value of 28, g-index value of 53, and i10-index value of 87^[4] and an RG score of 39.66 with over 3800 publications citing his research results. Karim is ranked amongst the top 50 researchers who contributed most to Applied Optics in its 50-year history.^[5][6] He was for 9 years the first Vice President for Research^[7] of Old Dominion University (ODU) in Norfolk, Virginia.

Biography

Born on May 4, 1953 in Sylhet, Bangladesh, he grew up in Barlekha, a border town in Moulvibazar. He attended Shatma Primary for his elementary education and Patharia Chotolekha High for a year after which he left home to be schooled at Faujdarhat Cadet College (1965–1969), Sylhet MC College (1969–1972), and the University of Dacca (1972–1976) wherefrom he received his bachelor's honors degree in physics. Karim was admitted to the University of Alabama before his results from the University of Dacca were released. He moved to the United States in 1976 and earned his master's degrees in physics (1978) and electrical engineering (1979), and a doctor of philosophy in electrical engineering (1982) from the University of Alabama.^[8]

Karim began creative writing in high school. A large number of his popular science writings in Bengali appeared in Bigyan Shamoeeki and Bangla Academy Bigyan Patrika during 1972–1976. Of these, the most significant were Biborthon Kahinee, a series of articles on cosmic and biological evolution, and Shamproteek, a monthly feature of current affairs in science, both of which appeared in Bigyan Shamoeeki. By sophomore year in 1974, he had completed his first book manuscript which submitted to Bangla Academy for publication. After about two years, the Academy informed that it wasn’t prepared to take a chance on its juvenile author. This episode troubled him deeply ending his creative writing efforts in Bengali. All his subsequent books and articles were written in English and all were published from outside of Bangladesh.

A 2004 Government of Bangladesh report^[9] and a number of books in Bengali, including Bangladesher Shera Bigyani (Hitler A. Halim, Shikor, 2004) and Medhabi Manusher Golpo (Mohammad Kaykobad, Annyaprokash, 2005), as well as Star Insight,^[10] cite him as an example of outstanding success of the Bangladeshi diaspora.^[11] His efforts to correct illegal practices that otherwise discriminated against international graduate students was featured by the Chronicle of Higher Education,^[12] Wall Street Journal in "Hidden Costs of a Brain Gain"^[13] and in turn by David Heenan in his book "Flight Capital: The Alarming Exodus of America's Best And Brightest". Karim is married and blessed with three children.

Professional affiliations

He has had academic appointments with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (1982–1983), Wichita State University (1983–1986), University of Dayton (1986-1998: Founding Director, Electro-Optics Program, 1990-1998; Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1994-1998), University of Tennessee at Knoxville (1998–2000: Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering), the City University of New York (2000–2004: Dean of Engineering), and Old Dominion University (2004-2013: Vice President Research).

Scholarly research

During his academic career, he supervised MS/PhD research of over 60 graduate students^[8] and authored 19 books, 8 book chapters, and over 365 research papers.^[8] He guest edited 33 journal special issues in areas of communication, computing, multimedia, networks, optics, pattern recognition, remote sensing, and software.

Relevance to Bangladesh

He leads the International Conference on Computer and Information Technology, now in its 16th year.^[14][15] Since 2009, with assistance of 5 teams of guest editors, Karim produced 20 journal special issues that featured works of Bangladesh-based researchers in the fields of communications,^[16] computing,^[17] multimedia,^[18] networks,^[19] and software.^[20] His edited book on "Technical Challenges and Design Issues in Bengali Language Processing" ^[21] provides a state-of-the-art platform for information communication technology research and development that is of significance to nearly 260 million Bengali-speaking people who live in Bangladesh, India and in diaspora in Middle East, Europe, and USA. This milestone work includes 16 chapters coauthored by 41 researchers from Bangladesh, Canada, India, Ireland, Norway, UK, and USA.

Professional recognition

• Fellow, the Optical Society of America^[3][22]
• Fellow, the Society of Photo-Instrumentation Engineers^[23]
• Fellow, the Institute of Physics^[24]
• Fellow, the Institution of Engineering and Technology^[25]
• Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers^[2]
• Fellow, Bangladesh Academy of Sciences^[26]

Patents

• Fiber Optic Coupling System, US Patent No. 4, 798, 428, January 17, 1989
• Trinary Associative Memory, US Patent No. 5,257, 387, October 26, 1993
• Inner-product array processor for retrieval of stored images^[27]
• Optical pattern recognition technique^[28]
• Raster scanner with a selectable spot dimension^[29]

References