Biography of Dr. Md. Shariful Alam
Dr. Md. Shariful Alam
Professor, Department of Mathematics
Jagannath University, Dhaka-1100
Research Interest: Computational Fluid Dynamics, Heat and Mass Transfer,
Nano-Fluidic Phenomena, Fourier Analysis.
[My Google Scholar Total Citation -2036, h-index-24, i 10 index-35
and Research Gate Total Citation-1732, Research Gate Reads-23764]
Email: dralamjnu@gmail.com,
msalam631@yahoo.com,
Cell: 008801316814344
Important web link
http://jnu.ac.bd/profile/portal/web/426
Google Scholar web link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=d0Pl-s4AAAAJ&hl=en
Research Gate web link: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shariful_Alam3
Statement of Teaching Philosophy:
The ability to think mathematically is one of the most valuable skills I teach my students. During my twenty one years of teaching in mathematics at many levels, from Numerical Analysis and Methods of Applied Mathematics courses to graduate courses, as a teacher, I have been constantly learning and gaining experience as to what makes an effective practitioner of the craft, and improving and focusing my own skills. I bring this experience, together with a commitment to continue learning and promoting my future career as a teacher of mathematics.
As a teacher of mathematics, I would like to take advantage of the fact that mathematics is a model that can be used for developing independent and critical thinking. I consider mathematics to be a challenging subject to teach right, which makes it especially attractive for me. I try to use every possibility to expose students to the exciting world of mathematics, often implicitly, so they may not even notice it at first. My main goal is to help students to become independent mathematical thinkers, capable of approaching, framing, and solving problems on their own. I attempt making my classroom to be an engaging place, where there is more discussion than lecture, and where students always feel free to contribute and ask questions. I feel that student's participation is crucial for learning mathematics. In high level graduate courses (in M. Sc. level), I sometimes even ask students to prepare and give lectures instead of me. From time to time, I try to be mathematically provocative, and do not miss an opportunity, if class time allows, to try to prove that 2+2=5 and to let students find a mistake in my arguments, if there is one.
I prepare my classes thoroughly, but I like to improvise whenever possible. I want to be interrupted during my lectures; and I give extra points for good questions and comments from students. I open each session with a brief reminder of the previous session's material and an outline of the day's topic, and I typically conclude with a summary of key points. There is a special session for review before every major test. I usually speak clearly, loudly, and slowly, but enthusiastically. Students are encouraged to learn from each other as their grades are not curved, thus, students are not competing with their classmates. In some classes, I give group projects and homework. To reduce students' anxiety about tests, I make old exams available on the Web, and often give practice tests. I usually give a test on prerequisites during the first week of the course. I do not consider memorization to be the most important in math courses; I encourage my students to understand the topics deeply. Assignments and projects are naturally integrated into my courses. I spend time explaining the assignments and solving similar problems in class for further discussion. For grading I generally follow the common practice of the department and traditions on specific courses.
I am always interested in encouraging students to explore applications of mathematics beyond the standard course material, and in a very recent Fourier analysis course I assigned a project with this goal. The course attracted students from a wide variety of majors, from Computer Science to Electrical and Electronic Engineering (in Digital Signal Processing), and so I asked each student to find an article in the research literature of their area which related to the ideas in the course, and write an extended review. I was impressed by the results, which spanned a broader range of applications than I could have imagined including in the course itself. Additionally, the project gave students a chance to polish their scientific writing skills through a cycle of feedback and revisions. I look forward to including projects such as this in future courses.
Technology is an essential and integrated part of my teaching. It is crucial for students to feel comfortable with the technologies that are becoming available; they need to know how to use a new technology effectively, what its limits are, and what to do when the technology fails. I am quite interested and familiar with recent innovations. Computer simulations and numerical experiments are traditional parts of many courses I teach.
I am committed to exchange my knowledge and enthusiasm in mathematics through teaching, both inside and outside the class. It is my feeling that my duties as a teacher do not end in the classroom. Rather, I strongly believe that the interaction between all people involved in the whole education process is very important. I regularly maintain my office hours to the needs of the students. It gives me the opportunity to establish an interactive partnership with the students and create a personalized environment for teaching and learning. I have found a positive impact of such a direct contact on students learning. I encourage students to come to my office whenever they need my help. I always take care of the weak students in the class providing extra support during the office hours.
I incorporate research activities into my regular teaching whenever possible. In all my high-level graduate classes student research projects are required. In several cases, project results obtained by students in my classes were significant enough to be included in my journal articles.
Long-term research goal:
In my Ph. D. thesis I studied numerically some model problems of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) convective heat and mass transfer flow of Newtonian, viscous incompressible and electrically conducting fluid past an inclined permeable surface with thermophoresis. Various flow conditions such as heat generation/absorption, viscous dissipation, joule heating, thermal radiation as well as chemical reaction have been considered in different models. The model flows were considered into two parts: comparatively simple one-dimensional model flows and relatively difficult two-dimensional flows. One-dimensional model problems were considered to be unsteady while two dimensional model problems were considered steady. In both parts the governing non-linear equations were developed and transformed into the system of non-linear ordinary differential equations using appropriate similarity transformations. Falkner-Skan transformations have been used to reduce the steady boundary layer equations into ordinary differential equations. Whereas for the unsteady one-dimensional model, similarity solutions have been obtained by introducing a similarity parameter delta, the functional value of which has been obtained during the process of analysis. The functional value was found to correspond exactly with the usual similarity length scale considered prior to the analyses adopted in the unsteady problems. The advantage of taking this similarity parameter delta is that one can easily obtain the similarity equations of the unsteady one-dimensional governing equations. The results obtained for each of the models have been discussed and analyzed for various physical parameters entering into the respective model.
Recently, I am working on nanofluids- nanotechnology based colloids - for heat transfer applications where nanostructured materials are dispersed in a conventional base liquid such as water or ethylene glycol to enhance their heat transfer characteristics. I have selected this topic since I am interested in working on nanotechnology-based projects with focus on energy related applications. Moreover, I am very interested in working about the applied aspects of science where we can offer practical solutions for the industrial challenges.
Nanofluid is an important area of emerging technology and these fluids have shown potential to be utilized in some engineering heat transfer applications. Actually the highly efficient removal of heat is one of the top challenges facing a number of industries such as microelectronics, transportation, manufacturing and power generation. According to the limitation of existing cooling technologies, developing innovative and more efficient cooling technologies is necessary to support technological development in the world. Just imagine the data center for some huge enterprises, having very big data centers, creating a lot of heat with a negative impact on the environment by producing very large-scale carbon emissions. These companies are always looking for new cooling technologies to replace the traditional methods. Nanofluid may provide them a better solution to remove heat from their facilities efficiently and we may see a revolution in the field of heat transfer in near future.
My long-term research goal is to develop a highly stable nanofluid for use in some practical heat transfer applications such as data centers. For this purpose, several nanofluid systems will be fabricated and characterized for their physico-chemical, thermo-physical and transport properties. The role of different factors such as nanoparticle concentration and composition, nanoparticle size, nanofluid stability, surface modifiers, preparation method and base liquid will be studied.
I am collaborating with several researchers from South Korea, Japan, Romania, Oman and Bangladesh. A significant number of papers have come out from my collaborative research.
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