Md Saidul Islam is an Associate Professor, the Post-Graduate Coordinator of Sociology, and the past coordinator of the Environment and Sustainability Research Cluster in the School of Social Sciences and Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU). He’s a former Visiting Scholar in the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2018).
Prof. Islam’s research interests include international development and environmental sociology, with a particular focus on industrial aquaculture, global agro-food systems, climate change, food security, and environmental sustainability. He has published eight books: (1) Development, Power and the Environment: Neoliberal Paradox in the Age of Vulnerability (Routledge, New York, 2013; solo-authored); (2) Confronting the Blue Revolution: Industrial Aquaculture and Sustainability in the Global South (University of Toronto Press, 2014; solo-authored); (3) Social Justice in the Globalization of Production: Labor, Gender and the Environment Nexus (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; co-authored); (4) Education and Sustainability: Paradigms, Policies, and Practices in Asia (Routledge, 2017; co-edited); (5) Sustainability through the Lens of Environmental Sociology (MDPI, Switzerland, 2018; edited); and (6) Islam and Democracy in South Asia: The Case of Bangladesh (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020; co-authored).
(7) Climate change and food security in Asia Pacific: Response and resilience (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021; co-authored). (8) The Jamaat Question in Bangladesh: Islam, Politics and Society in a Post-Democratic Nation (Routledge, 2023; Co-edited).
In addition to books, Dr. Islam also published over six dozen peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries; notable amongst them is his co-authored article on sustainable seafood in the journal Science. He is the recipient of several awards including the Early Investigator Award 2015 (Canadian Sociological Association). His recent projects include “Climate change and food security in the Asia-Pacific: Response and Resilience” and “The rise of ‘green’ movements in the global environmental politics”, both supported by Tier-1 grants from the Ministry of Education, Singapore.
Dr. Islam is the founder of various conceptual frameworks and paradigms such as (a) the Twin-driven Commodity Chain, (b) Double-Risk Society, (c) Neoliberal Paradox, (d) Development as a Historical Project of Power, (e) Islamic Ecological Paradigm, (f) Plural Coexistence Model for disaster studies, and (g) Modernization of Ecology. He teaches Environmental Sustainability, Development and Social Change, Environmental Sociology, and Cultural Politics of Development and Environment.
Dr. Islam earned his MA and Ph.D. in Sociology from York University in Canada where he also taught Sociology and a Bachelor in Sociology & Anthropology from International Islamic University Malaysia. He also taught at the College of William and Mary in the United States, and Nankai University in China.