Fellow

Dr. Mahbubur Rahman

(Expatriate Fellow, 2023)

Associate Prof. Dr. Mahbubur Rahman was born in Comilla in 1966. He was a student of Comilla Modern School (primary), Comilla Zilla School (SSC) and Comilla Victoria Govt. College (HSC). In 1986, he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh.

He received the M.Sc. degree in Engineering Physics (5-years-long study programme) with a direction to Electrical Engineering from Uppsala University (UU), Uppsala, Sweden. From the same university, he received the Ph.D. degree (5-years-programme including teaching duties) in Engineering Science with specialization in Atmospheric Discharges in 2005.

From November 2005 until September 2019, he worked mainly as Researcher and partly as Project Leader at UU. He was appointed by UU as Senior Lecturer in Electricity with specialization in Atmospheric Discharges in 2019. Since 2006 he has been responsible for the High Voltage Laboratory which is mainly the Lightning Research Laboratory of UU. The Faculty Board of Science and Technology at UU has appointed Dr. Rahman as Docent in Engineering Science with specialization in Atmospheric Discharges in 2017. Dr. Rahman is elected representative of staff union SACO-S in the Disciplinary Domain & Faculty Board of Science and Technology of UU. He acts as safety representative’s administrator also for the SACO-S association at UU.          

He visited University of Florida, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Gainesville having Prof. V. A. Rakov as host in 2007; and University of the Federal Armed Forces, Munich, Germany, Institute of Electric Power supply, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, having Prof. F. Heidler as host in 2008. As visiting Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Dr. Rahman visited North South University, Dhaka in 2017, and as invited lecturer he visited the Bangladesh Oceanographic Research Institute (BORI) in 2023 where he gave a presentation about lightning, lightning research and safety issues. In 2007, he installed several high voltage equipment as a representative of a Swedish company at the high voltage laboratory of Dhaka University of Engineering and Technology (DUET) in Gazipur.     

Since 2007 Dr. Rahman has received research project grants of total amount of 10.4M SEK from the Swedish Research Council (VR) as co-applicant. Additionally, he received grants from Swedish Rescue Services Agency, Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency as co-applicant and also through industrial collaboration in Sweden.

He authored or co-authored more than 80 scientific articles both peer-reviewed, conference and popular and 2 book chapters. His work was highlighted in “Nature” and “The New York Times” in 2007. He had acted as reviewer in American Geophysical Union (AGU) journals, Atmosphere -open access journal, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Journal of Electrostatics, IEEE, International Conference on Lightning Protection (ICLP). Dr. Rahman served as Assistant Editor of the Open Atmospheric Science Journal during 2008-2014.

Dr. Rahman supervised or co-supervised 8 PhD students, 10 master’s theses and 2 post-docs. He has taught 12 different courses at BSc and MSc level at two different universities since 2000 basically in electrical engineering programme. He also conducts three PhD courses.  

He has served as Vice-Chairman and General Secretary in the Local Organizing Committee of the 29th International Conference on Lightning Protection, ICLP 2008, Uppsala. He has also served as Moderator of conference sessions, and as Investigator or Evaluator of lightning related issues both in public and industrial domain.

He has collaborated with different lightning research groups in USA, Europe, South America and Asia. More than 20 Swedish based industries and companies he had cooperation with. He has appeared in both Swedish national and international mass media (TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazine) at different times regarding lightning research or protection issues, for example in NYT, SVT, TV4, SVTB, YLE, SR, SMTradio, DN, EXPRESSEN, UNT.

His research interests include Atmospheric Electrical Discharges, Lightning, Lightning Protection, Laboratory Sparks, Electrostatic Discharges (ESD), Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC), Atmospheric Electrical Discharge Chemistry. A list of publications of Dr. Rahman can be found in the following link: https://www.katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N0-427