Mostafizur Rahman
Dr. Rahman is at Birmingham City University. He got his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia in 2015. He received a prestigious International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS), Australian Postgraduate Award (APA), and Deputy Vice Chancellor top-up scholarships for his postgraduate research degree. He got his BSc in Mechanical Engineering and secured 1st position in the final cumulative BSc Engineering exam results. He was awarded a University Grant Commission Scholarship for getting the highest CGPA in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. In recognition of this outstanding achievement, he received the Presidential Gold Medal in 2008, awarded by the honourable president of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh. He also got his postgraduate certificate (PGCert) on Academic Practice in Higher Education from Coventry University at 2021. Dr. Rahman is registered as a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), which is a clear recognition of his qualifications and competency in developing engineering solutions to real-world problems. He is also a fellow of Advanced HE (HEA), which is a clear recognition of his teaching-learning practices in higher education (HE) settings.
Dr. Rahman worked as a Lecturer in the School of Mechanical Aerospace and Automotive engineering at Coventry University (UK) from 2019 to 2022. He lead and taught the Thermofluid Mechanics Module at Coventry University (CU) at level 5, which is taught to a large cohort of Mechanical, Automotive, and Motorsports engineering students in both semesters of the year. He also taught the Advanced Powertrains and Aerodynamics module, Fluid and Heat Transfer module, Advanced Mechanical Science module (BEng and MEng), and Bioenergy module and level 7 (MSc) at CU. He also served as an Associate Course Director for Automotive Engineering Course at Coventry University where he contributed the Automotive Engineering course management. He also supervised postgraduate students for their research projects who are working now as an engineer for world-leading companies (Cummins, Continental etc). He also supervised student group projects with industry at CU, where a group of final year students worked together to develop a solution to a real-world engineering problem given by the respective industries.
Dr. Rahman practices transformative teaching-learning pedagogy which employs research-inspired teaching to ensure active learning with accommodation of creativity, innovation, inclusiveness, and employability. Constructive alignment is another core feature of his teaching which links classroom activities to the course learning outcomes.
Dr Rahman has plenty of experience in performing high-impact research which contributes to new technology development. He worked on the PEMs4Nano project as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with leading Industry partners Horiba Scientific, Bosch GmbH, TSI Inc, and IDIADA Ltd. He also has worked on the development of a new solid particle number-portable emissions measurement system (SPN-PEMs) capable of measuring down to 10 nm vehicle engine exhaust particles robustly. The outcome of this project has paved the pathway for the European Commission (EC) to amend the current gasoline direct injection (GDI) vehicle emissions regulation, and lower the cut point of solid particle number emission standard from 23 nm to 10 nm. A significant challenge of this project was to optimize a catalytic stripper for optimal volatile and semi-volatile HC removal while ensuring higher (>60%) solid particle penetration at 10 nm size to the particle counter. He optimized the design of a catalytic stripper for the lowest diffusional and thermophoretic losses and achieved 75% solid particle penetration at 10 nm size with adequate HC removal. The optimized CS unit is implemented in the new Horiba 2100 SPSS system and OBS-ONE-PN PEMS system and tested during pilot-scale experimental measurement in Germany and Spain. He also worked on industrial projects during his postdoc tenure at QUT (Australia), where he worked with industry partners i.e. skillPro Pty Ltd, Australian Coal Association, Eromanga Fuel, Peak 3, Licella Australia Ltd, Mainline Dynolog Dynamometers Ltd, and more.
Dr. Rahman also has an excellent track record of producing high-quality research. A simple example can be his very first journal publication published in the journal of Applied Thermal Engineering in 2009 and has since received over 600 citations. This article was based on his undergraduate project work. Altogether, he has published 34 articles in peer-reviewed journals. The impact of his research outcomes is certainly revealed in ORCID and Google Scholar profiles. As appears in his Google Scholar account, his publications have already received more than 1700 scholarly citations with h-index 18 and i-10 index 26.
Dr. Rahman has worked on many projects involving the development of low carbon and carbon neutral fuels, detailed characterization of them, and investigating their combustion and emissions performance, nano-particle emissions in particular. He is keen to expand his knowledge and expertise for research and development of emerging fuels i.e hydrogen, ammonia, and synthetic fuels (e-diesel). He is also interested in research on advanced combustion engines (free piston engine, HCCI, and RCCI engine), which have far greater potential than conventional engines as range extenders of Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV). He has also unique expertise in aerosol synthesis and characterization, emissions measurement, and instrumentation for combustion generated nanoparticle measurement, which he demonstrated at the University of Cambridge (UK), Bosch GmbH (Stuttgart, Germany), Mainline Dynolog Dynamometers (Sydney), and the University of Queensland (Brisbane) in collaborative projects.