Mahbuba Nasreen
Pro Vice Chancellor @ Bangladesh Open University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Professor Mahbuba Nasreen is the Pro-Vice Chancellor (Academic) of Bangladesh Open University. She is also a Professor, former Director and Co-founder of the Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies (IDMVS), University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her career started as a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the same university in 1988. She has received Commonwealth Scholarship in 1991 for pursuing her PhD Degree in New Zealand, which further developed her professional career. Her dissertation topic coping with Floods: The Experiences of Rural Women in Bangladesh (1995) is the pioneer PhD research in the areas of disaster and gender issues within South Asia and is widely used. As Professor she has served the Department of Sociology from 2005- 2012 and later was appointed as Director of IDMVS. Dr. Nasreen is involved in fundamental research on theory, gender, disasters, environment, climate change, education, social inclusion and intersectionality, humanitarian issues and other areas of social development since late eighties.
Dr. Nasreen has been honored with Mary Fran Myers Award, 2016, Gender and Disaster Network, Natural Hazards Center, Colorado University (Boulder), USA for her three-decade long contributions in disaster research. Prof. Nasreen is continuously contributing to policy making towards inclusive disaster risk reduction efforts and other relevant areas of national and international policy and regulatory frameworks. Since 2009, she is representing University of Dhaka as a member of the National Disaster Management Advisory Committee (NDMAC), and in 2019 she has been nominated as the Advisor of the first ever position on ‘Gender and Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction’ in the NDMAC formed by the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief (MoDMR), Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (GoB). She has participated and contributed in several national and global forums organized by UN and relevant others such as World Conference on Women, Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR), Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR), first ever World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) and contributed to the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR), where the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR, 2015-2030) was adopted. She is involved in collaborative research and networking activities in home and abroad including Oxford University, University College of London (UCL), UK; Ohio State University, Lock Haven University, The University of Mississippi, USA; Duryog Nivaran, in South Asia and others. Prof. Nasreen is leading Gender and Disaster Network (GDN) Bangladesh Country Hub and the ‘Gender Responsive Resilience and Intersectionality in Policy and Practices (GRRIPP)’ for South Asian region in collaboration with and UCL, UK.
Dr Mahbuba has a large number of national and international publications including books, chapters in books, and articles in journals and periodicals. She is the supervisor of number of PhD and M.Phil dissertations in home and abroad including Netherlands, UK and USA. She has contributed in several policies in Bangladesh as member of technical appraisal; advisory committee and author including education curriculum; SDGs; drafting chapter for the Seventh Five Year Plan; Climate Change Gender Action Plan and other policy documents.
