Dr. Md Farhadur Rahman

Academic Story

Dr. Md Farhadur Rahman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Remote Sensing and GIS at Gazipur Agricultural University (GAU) in Bangladesh. His academic journey reflects both determination and vision: the aspiration to become a forest ecologist who applies the most advanced remote sensing techniques to understand and protect forest ecosystems.

His path began with a Bachelor’s degree in Forestry from the Institute of Forestry and Environmental Science, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. Even as an undergraduate, he was fascinated by the role of technology in forestry and forest ecology. This passion led him to pursue graduate studies abroad, supported by the Japanese Government (MONBUKAGAKUSHO: MEXT). In 2016, he joined Kyoto University, Japan, as a master’s student, continuing into doctoral research in the same laboratory. He was awarded his Ph.D. in March 2022.

His doctoral work was ambitious in scale and scope. Using airborne LiDAR over 230 km² of forest‑dominated landscapes in central Kyoto, he explored forest structure and disturbance dynamics. Working with massive datasets, he distilled ecologically meaningful insights through state‑of‑the‑art technologies. Alongside this, he gained experience in tracking canopy leaf ecophysiology through light reflectance, bridging physiological ecology with remote sensing.

After completing his Ph.D., Dr. Rahman continued at Kyoto University as a postdoctoral researcher in the Tropical Forest Research and Environments Lab. Collaborating with Associate Professor Dr. Yusuke Onoda, he contributed to The Digital Biosphere Project, an innovative initiative integrating genomes, traits, and ecology to maximize forest function.