Prof. Dr. Engr. Md. Saidur Rahman

Dr. Saidur Rahman, Md., a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), had his early education at Santhia Primary School, Santhia High School and Dhaka College. He received a BSc in Engineering from EEE in 1989 and an MSc in Engineering specializing in CSE from BUET in 1992. He received MSc and PhD degrees in Information Sciences from Tohoku University, Japan, in 1996 and 1999, respectively. Dr. Rahman began his career as an Assistant Engineer at ICS, AERE in 1990. He then joined the CSE Department at BUET as a lecturer in 1991. He also worked as an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University, Japan, during 2003- 2004.

Professor Rahman specializes in theoretical computer science and research on graph algorithms, graph-drawing algorithms, VLSI physical layout algorithms, computational geometry, internet routing protocols and bioinformatics. He has developed several efficient algorithms for planar graph drawings, which have been successfully used in applications such as circuit schematics, VLSI floor planning and architectural floor planning. He has had around 120 articles published in internationally reputed journals and conference proceedings. With the renowned computer scientist Professor Takao Nishizeki, he wrote the graduate textbook Planar Graph Drawing, published by World Scientific Publishing Co., which appeared in the publisher’s Bestseller list. The book is considered the most valuable pioneering work on planar graph drawings, and it has been widely distributed over the world. He also wrote a textbook entitled Basic Graph Theory, which is being used as a textbook in undergraduate courses in many universities throughout the world. He has co-edited five volumes of the Workshop on Algorithms and Computation (WALCOM): Algorithms and Computation proceedings, four of which were published by Springer-Verlag. He served as a program committee member of the International Symposium on Graph Drawing in 2003, 2005 and 2007; the International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC) in 2006 and 2011; the Annual Meeting of the Asian Association for Algorithms and Computation (AAAC) in 2010, 2011 and 2012; and the IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium (PacificVis) in 2012. He also served as a program co-chair of WALCOM in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2017. Professor Rahman has served as a guest editor of Theoretical Computer Science, Journal of Graph Algorithms and Applications, Journal of Combinatorial Optimization and Discrete Mathematics, Algorithms and Applications.

Professor Rahman is leading an enthusiastic research group in the Graph Drawing and Information Visualization Laboratory of BUET’s CSE Department. He has supervised 22 MSc Engineering theses and three PhD theses. Professor Rahman has also initiated brainstorming sessions on various topics in computer science that have become not only popular among talented young people but also effective in solving research problems by collaboration. As an active researcher of computer science, Professor Rahman has made a significant contribution to building a community of computer science researchers in the South-Asian region. In 2007, inspired by Prof. M. Kaykobad and with support from the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences, he played the leading role in initiating and establishing WALCOM to create the opportunity for researchers in this region to publish their research results in a low-cost quality conference. WALCOM has been held annually in Bangladesh and India since then, and the proceedings of WALCOM have been published by Springer- Verlag since 2008. Professor Rahman has been actively associated with world-leading researchers, invited to deliver talks to several universities at home and abroad, and chaired sessions in many internationally reputed conferences. He has visited many renowned foreign universities in Australia, Austria, Czech Republic, Hong-Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Germany, Taiwan, and the United States.

Professor Rahman was a recipient of the MONBUSHO Scholarship and JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship. He is a recipient of the BAS Gold Medal 2003 in the junior group, the UGC Award for 2004 and the prestigious Funai Information Technology Award for Young Researchers 2004.

Currently, Professor Rahman is serving as the director of BUET’s Institutional Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC). He has successfully met several administrative responsibilities at BUET, including positions as the Head of the CSE Department and as BUET’s Registrar.