Golam Kabir is a graduate of the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus School of Engineering and an assistant professor at the University of Windsor.
What brought you to UBC Okanagan?
Based on the academic quality, research and innovation, and leaders of tomorrow, the University of British Columbia is one of the top-ranked universities in the world and Canada. UBC always attracts extraordinary talent from across the world by establishing linkages between research, education, and training. Also, the breathtaking natural beauty and pleasant weather of the Okanagan performed key roles in my decision.
Describe the research you did with Dr. Tesfamariam?
In my Ph.D. research, I developed a robust repair and replacement (R&R) action program for water mains using the Bayesian framework for considering a different level of uncertainties. This research improves large-scale infrastructure asset management practices for water distribution networks in Canada and aids utility operators to better address the failure and consequences of water mains and make effective decisions about their water mains R&R plans proactively.
What are some of your fondest memories from being at UBCO?
While I was pursuing Ph.D. at UBC, my first child and little angel Ruqayaah was born. The birth of my first child made my PhD life challenging as well as memorable.
How did your studies at UBC Okanagan prepare you for your role at Windsor?
During my Ph.D., I worked as a graduate research intern with the City of Calgary and research associate in multiple CRD-NSERC funded projects with multiple municipalities (i.e., City of Calgary, City of Kelowna, Glenmore-Ellison Improvement District, and Greater Vernon Water). I also worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the area of operation, repair and replacement management program, and risk management of municipal infrastructure systems. As an instructor, I taught ENGR 330 Optimization and Decision Analysis for Civil Engineering and ENGR 531 and ENGR 331/431 Infrastructure Management courses in Winter and Summer 2017 terms at UBC.
I also got the opportunity to mentor graduate and undergraduate students to complete their thesis project in infrastructure management fields. I believe that my research and teaching experiences, hands-on industrial knowledge combined with relevant coursework in industrial and system engineering prepared me for my role at Windsor.
What type of research are you doing now at Windsor?
My current research works and future research interest lie in system risk, reliability, resilience assessment, interdependent network resilience analytics, multi-criteria decision analysis under risk and uncertainty, sustainable system analytics, data-driven decision making, and multi-objective optimization.