Touhidul becomes first Bangladeshi at tenure-track teaching position at Stanford University

He will join the new position in February next year

Touhidul Islam has been appointed as an assistant professor at Stanford University, a prestigious educational institution in the United States, becoming the first Bangladeshi to secure a tenure-track position at the university.

The US Embassy in Dhaka posted about the 'trailblazing achievement' on its Facebook page on Tuesday.

An alumnus of the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Touhidul has received the position of assistant professor.

Touhidul is the first Bangladeshi to secure a tenure-track position, the US Embassy wrote. "With a PhD from Texas A&M, his research focuses on AI applications in medical diagnostics. A proud moment for Bangladesh on the global academic stage!" the post said.

Touhidul Islam, who grew up in Rajshahi’s Charghat, has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Radiation Oncology Department since June 2019.

He is likely to join his new position in February next year, Touhidul wrote in a Facebook post on Aug 30.

“For the last six months, I had innumerable Zoom and on-site interviews, salary negotiation meetings and ended up with three offers from five top universities in the US,” he wrote while describing his success.

“After prolonged thought and discussions with my PhD Postdoc mentors, I decided to join Stanford. Alhamdulillah! Now I can call Stanford my home.”

“I’ll hire some PhD and Postdoc students. My main research is on–use of artificial intelligence, like deep learning, large language model in analysing high dimensional biomedical data (like medical image, genemix, ECG, text report),” he said.

“I’m interested in collaborating with Bangladeshi researchers working on biomedical data. Also, I’ll feel lucky to take part in any AI programme planned by the new government in Bangladesh.”