Abed Chaudhury

Scientist, Writer

Visiting & Regular Faculty

Dr. Abed Chaudhury is a powerful thinker, activist and scientist. As a well-known geneticist based in Australia and Bangladesh, he has carried out important work in agricultural science, and has written books on science in both Bengali and English. For many years now, he has been working relentlessly and passionately to convert his home-place Kanihati (in Sylhet) into a rural hub of intellectual activity particularly in educational improvement and reform. Describable as the “Kanihati Experiment,” the work is a demonstration of social, intellectual, agricultural and environmental transformation.

Kanihati is the name of a Pargana, a conglomerate of about a hundred villages created from a land grant from the Tripura King in the 14th century. Result of a genetic admixture of Tripura people and immigrant Sufi Muslims from Yemen, Kanihati went through the process of “Abad” or taming and bringing structure to the land. This process produced the unique land use pattern, crops, roads, irrigation and the habitat in the form of dwellings, mosques etc. The whole arrangement of land is an embodiment of human propensity for creating habitat and culture. From this primordial arrangement, the subsequent development of of architecture in Bangladesh can be understood. Dr. Chaudhury will also engage latest ideas of human biology and neuroaesthetics, and analyse the development of architecture in a human friendly way, that is, via embodiment.