After serving the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), Australia for nearly 30 years as the Founding Professor of Statistics, Dr Shahjahan Khan has decided to return to his native country, Bangladesh. He has accepted an appointment as the Vice Chancellor of the Asian University of Bangladesh (AUB).
Prof Khan received his PhD and MSc degrees from the Western University, Canada, and MSc and BSc Honours degrees from Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh. He started his academic career as a Lecturer of Statistics in the University of Dhaka in 1980 and held various academic positions in the Western University, Canada; King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia; University of Bahrain, State of Bahrain; Sultan Qaboos University, Oman; and Dhaka University, Bangladesh.
Prof Khan served as the President of Islamic Countries Society of Statistical Sciences (ISOSS) from 2005-2011, and was the main organiser of successful international statistics conferences in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2007); Dhaka, Bangladesh (2008); Cairo, Egypt (2029); Doha, Qatar (2011) and Bogor, Indonesia (2014). The construction of the building of ISOSS Head Quarters in Lahore was completed when he was the President of the ISOSS.
Prof Khan is an elected Member of International Statistical Institute (ISI), Netherlands; elected Fellow of Royal Statistical Society (RSS), UK; Member of Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS), USA; Statistical Society of Australia; and Life Member of Bangladesh Statistical Association and ISOSS.
For his outstanding research and international professional leadership, Prof Khan was awarded ISESCO Gold Medal in 2001 and ISOSS Gold Medal in 2007. He is the last and the fourth recipients of the prestigious Qazi Motahar Hossain Gold Medal (2012) of Bangladesh Statistical Association which was introduced in 1990. In recognition of fundamental research contributions, Prof Khan was elected as an Expatriate Fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS) in 2013.
Prof Khan has been serving as the Founding Chief Editor of Journal of Applied Probability and Statistics (JAPS), USA since 2006. He has also edited a number of conference proceedings. In 2011 the Islamic Countries Society of Statistical Sciences organised an International Conference in honour of Prof Khan.
Prof Khan’s research interest includes Public Health, Evidence-based Decision, Meta-analysis, predictive inference, linear models, preliminary-test and shrinkage estimation. He has published over 250 peer reviewed journal articles in high quality international journals.
He has presented over 20 research workshops in different countries, presented 25 keynote addresses in international conference, and more than 100 invited talks and professional seminars. He has travelled to about 40 countries for his professional assignments and engagements. His recent book published by Springer Nature on Meta-Analysis Methods for Health and Experimental Studies already has over 17,000 downloads in about 20 months.
At the USQ, Prof Khan served as the Head of Statistics Discipline for many years and as an elected Member of the Academic Board for six years. Prof Khan has supervised 20 PhD and three MPhil students. Among his higher degree students, he has supervised/nurtured five Bangladeshi MPhil and PhD students.
He has mentored many post-doctoral fellows and young research colleagues from many different countries. Recently Prof Khan has been appointed as an Adjunct Professor at USQ. In a rare honour, University of Southern Queensland, Australia has established Prof Shahjahan Khan Scholarship for students who are enrolled at USQ from Bangladesh, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia and Afghanistan.
As a visiting scientist/professor Prof Khan visited Tokyo University, Japan; Carleton University, Canada; Calcutta University, India; National University of Singapore, Singapore; United Arab Emirates University, UAE; University of Malaya, University Putra Malaysia, University Science Malaysia, and University Technology Malaysia, Malaysia; Karachi University, Pakistan, to mention a few.
Prof Khan was very active in serving the community with outstanding leadership outside his academic job. In recognition of his exceptional service, he was awarded Multicultural Service Award (2002), and highly prestigious Cultural Diversity Ambassador Award (2014) from Queensland Government, Australia; Islamic Council of Queensland Community Service Award (2011); Queensland Police Service Award (2017); and USQ Diversity and Inclusion Award (2018).
He was instrumental to establish the USQ Islamic Centre in 2000 and served as its Coordinator until 2014. He served as the President of the USQ Multicultural Staff Network 2013-2021, and organised a number of very successful seminars on Multiculturalism in Toowoomba, and an international symposium in International Islamic University, Malaysia (2019). He has also written several articles on this topic.
As the Founding President of Islamic Society of Toowoomba and Chairman of Toowoomba Islamic Charitable Trust Prof Khan led the creation of Garden City Mosque in Toowoomba. After the burning of the Mosque twice in 2015 he took the lead to raise funds to reconstruct the Mosque. The project is near completion at the cost of around $2 million.
Prof Khan also served as the Vice President of Islamic Council of Queensland for two terms (2007 and 2014). He was also elected as the interim President of Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) in 2016. He served as an elected Director of the oldest and largest Islamic Finance Institution in Australia (2014-2017), Melbourne based, Muslim Community Cooperative Australia (MCCA).
Prof Khan wrote a series of thoughtful articles highlighting various social and community issues to educate the members of the community and appeal to the policy makers. He also played a key role in initiating and organising petitions to Australian Parliaments to protect the rights of oppressed people.
Australian Federal Parliament Member, Hon Dr John McVeigh MP acknowledged Professor Shahjahan Khan in his maiden speech in the Federal Parliament. State Member for Toowoomba South, Hon David Janetzki MP also mentioned Professor Khan’s name in his maiden speech in Queensland Parliament.
In her speech at the 9th Annual Toowoomba International Food Festival and Garden City Mosque Open Day – 2022, the honourable Vice-Chancellor of USQ Professor Geraldine Mackenzie paid tribute to Prof Khan stating “Professor Khan’s community service has been second to none.With his constant focus on the promotion of understanding, respect for different cultures, internationalisation, and multiculturalism, Prof Khan has been a shining light in the University community, and the Toowoomba community.”
Prof Khan was born in a respectable Muslim family in Gopalgonjdistrict and studied in his village Primary School and S M Model High School in Gopalgonj. He is married to Mrs Anarkali Lutfun Nahar. They are blessed with three sons. Two of their sons are well educated entrepreneurs running their manufacturing industriesin Australia and the eldest one is a world reputed IT professional.
Given his unparallel academic experience, leadership roles, and community development activities in an abroad, I strongly believe that AUB will reach a new height under the leadership of Prof Shahjahan Khan. I wish him all the best in his new venture as the Vice Chancellor of the Asian University of Bangladesh.
Ma Sha Allah! Love you! May Allah help you!