Biography

Dr Suman is Veterinarian who did Master’s in Public Health with a major in Epidemiology, followed by a PhD in Veterinary Epidemiology from School of Veterinary Science, the University of Queensland (UQ), Gatton, Australia. Over the past 18 years, Suman has developed himself as a recognized Veterinary Epidemiologist with hands-on knowledge and expertise’s in Veterinary Epidemiology, biosecurity and animal disease surveillance. Suman has completed training programs in Australia, UK and Bangladesh on advanced epidemiological techniques or modelling (for instance, risk factor modelling, infectious disease spread modelling, Structural Equation Modelling, spatial modelling, Multilevel random effects modelling, bioinformatics etc.). Moreover, Suman has extensive experiences in epidemiological studies using advanced epidemiological techniques (modelling) with a wide range of sophisticated analytical tools (for example, R, STATA, SaTScan, MLwiN, MPlus, AMOS, ArcGIS Map, NVivo).

Suman’s outstanding and exceptional academic and professional skills and experiences led to his employment as a National Consultant: Biosecurity Expert, as a National Consultant: Surveillance Expert and as a Technical Advisor for renowned international organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and STOP AI|USAID.

Suman significantly contributed to the Avian Influenza field research program in Bangladesh to prevent and control emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases using innovative, web and mobile technologies through improving disease surveillance systems by applying innovative approaches, such as public and community based active disease surveillance to early detect, report and respond to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza disease.

Suman also led the biosecurity program and made a significant contribution to improving biosecurity across the poultry value chain in Bangladesh through innovative biosecurity interventions, such as, (i) Public Private Partnership approaches (ii) Bio-secure Poultry Market Chain initiatives to improve biosecurity in commercial poultry production and poultry trading. In addition, he played a key surveillance role for syndromic surveillance of livestock and poultry diseases, Emerging Pandemic Threats surveillance involving duck and swine, integrated Influenza A surveillance, integrated Avian Influenza risk-based surveillance and led numerous disease outbreak investigations (for example. Avian Influenza in poultry, Anthrax in cattle, Peste des petits ruminants-PPR in goats). Moreover, Suman developed various biosecurity training materials for different poultry stakeholders (commercial poultry farmers, backyard poultry farmers, live bird market personnel, transporter), vets, para-vets, community members etc. Suman was also involved in the development of basic epidemiology training materials on Avian Influenza and Foot-and Mouth Disease for field veterinarians of the Asia-Pacific region.

Suman’s expertise is recognized internationally, and he was invited to be a member of a FAO’s advisory panel (along with other experts from Australia, Egypt, Indonesia, UK, Vietnam) to advise on avian influenza prevention and control measures. Considering his outstanding epidemiological research skills, he was awarded a highly competitive post-doctoral fellowship by UQ and was recruited by different UQ projects to conduct epidemiological and biosecurity research. He is currently recruited by the Gulbali Research Institute, Charles Sturt University, Australia as a Research Fellow in Veterinary Epidemiology, Biosecurity and Surveillance.