About the Founder

Dr. Md. Ahsan Ali

Dr. Md. Ahsan Ali was born in 1950 in the district of Chapai Nawabganj in Rajshahi division of Bangladesh which received his early education. He obtained MA in Sociology from the University of Dhaka. He conducted several researches with special reference to tribal studies. Later he obtained the Winrock International Fellowship in 1987 and was enrolled in the department of Anthropology University of Calcutta, India for his Ph.D. He works under the guidance of Professor Prabodh Kumar Bhowmick, Ph.D, D Sc, Department of Anthropology, Calcutta University, India and was awarded the Ph.D. degree in 1991 in Anthropology. Dr Ali’s keen affiliation with the downtrodden tribals is praise worthy, it was the concern that made him interested in preparing a systematic ethnography on the life of the Santals who came to the Barind tract in Bangladesh and encapsulated there again, he conducted field work among the Santals of West Bengal , India, to have comparative analysis of how the said group of people attenuated due to less interaction with their erstwhile homeland in India. His thesis was warmly appreciated by Professor H. Ishida, Ph.D. D.Litt. of Hiroshima University, Japan. He participated in many seminars in Bangladesh and abroad where he presented papers on specific topics.
Dr. Ali worked as Head of the Department of Anthropology in Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh. He also worked as a Head of the Department of Anthropology in University of Dhaka.
Prof. Dr. Ali is a prominent Bangladeshi human rights and social activist, as well as an educationist and environmentalist who is well known as the founder of ASHRAI. Now he is working as a Executive Director at ASHRAI.