Topic: Iajuddin Ahmed

Iajuddin Ahmed (Bengali: ইয়াজউদ্দিন আহম্মেদ) (born February 1, 1931) was President of Bangladesh from 2002 to 2009.

Ahmed was born in Bikrampur of Dhaka District, erstwhile Bengal province, British India (now Munshiganj District, Bangladesh). As the son of Moulvi Ibrahim Mia, Ahmed obtained his B.Sc. and M.S. at the University of Dhaka in 1952 and 1954 respectively and later received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1958 and 1962 respectively from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States.

Returning to his former university, he joined the University of Dhaka as an assistant professor in the Department of Soil Science. He moved up in the ranks until he became a full professor in the department. He held the post of chairman of the Soil Science Department of Dhaka University and dean of the Faculty of Biological Science of the same University. He was also provost of Salimullah Muslim Hall. He was responsible for inventing a process of preserving nutrients in the soil and later releasing them according to the needs of the vegetation. Professor Ahmed also worked as visiting professor in Cornell University in the United States in 1984 and the German Technical University and Gottingen University in Germany in 1984. Ahmed and his current wife, Dr. Anwara Begum, have one child, son Imtaz; he has two others, daughter Susan and son Adam, by a prior marriage.