CNST associate director receives a C-U Humanitarian Award

10/31/2007 Lauren Eichmann, ECE Illinois

Dr. Irfan Ahmad, associate director at the University of Illinois Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, is one of six recipients of the 2007 Champaign-Urbana International Humanitarian Award. The honor, which recognizes “significant contributions to international understanding, cooperation, friendship, and development,” strives to educate the public about local and global community connections.

Written by Lauren Eichmann, ECE Illinois

Irfan Ahmad
Irfan Ahmad

Dr. Irfan Ahmad, associate director at the University of Illinois Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, is one of six recipients of the 2007 Champaign-Urbana International Humanitarian Award. The honor, which recognizes “significant contributions to international understanding, cooperation, friendship, and development,” strives to educate the public about local and global community connections.

Ahmad was nominated by Professor Rizwan Uddin of the nuclear, plasma, and radiological engineering department for work he has done with disaster relief for the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and India and after Hurricane Katrina. Ahmad is being recognized specifically in the area of humanitarian relief. The other categories include human rights, hospitality, research and education, and agriculture. 

“I rarely come across people with as much energy — directed in the right direction — as Irfan,” said Uddin in the nomination letter. “Through his activities, he promotes dialogue and civic engagement as a means to solve problems, both locally and abroad. He brings a tremendous amount of energy to the table and inspires others to do the best.”

Ahmad started a mega disasters project with Susan Kieffer of the geology department last year, along with Arif Masud in Civil Engineering. The aim of the project is to focus on establishing a conceptual lead by looking at mega disasters such as global climate change, tsunamis, and earthquakes as learning experiences for policy makers globally, he said.

He has also worked with the Pakistani Students Association and other community organizations after the South Asia earthquake in 2005 by organizing campus-wide fundraising. Their efforts secured more than $20,000 for the earthquake victims in Pakistan, which was donated on behalf of the Urbana-Champaign residents. Blankets and tents were also donated to the areas most impacted by the disaster, including the hardest hit area of Kashmir.

Ahmad said the kind of work he’s done is the sort of thing that a person doesn’t brag about. “You do it for a cause. In a way I didn’t want to be recognized,” he said. “At the same time I see that we as engineers have a strong role to play in taking care of society and not to be oblivious of what is going on around us.” He also noted that engineers should recognize how policy-making is a critical first step in terms of the disaster mitigation and management, including relief work. 

To Ahmad, this means that people should make meaningful contribution to society by engaging others in issues they feel are significant, in order to generate engineering solutions for global problems including mega disasters. Yet many researchers and students tend to narrowly focus on their own area of expertise, said Ahmad. “They say that, ‘this is my research, it’s what I’m going to do. Someone else will take care of the rest’ — whether it’s a positive impact or a negative impact of that research. I see it slightly differently. That particular device, sensor, or equipment that we make is going to impact the human being. So we have to know the people who will be affected. You may not know the breadth and length of [the impact of your invention], or what the repercussions will be, but you should at least be aware of the range of possibilities the device carries.”

Ahmad is also working with ECE Associate Professor Brian Cunningham and Ken Watkin, professor of physiology in the College of Applied Health Sciences to develop nanomedicine for cancer research using plant extracts, along with colleagues at the University of Karachi. Likewise, he serves as a research project coordinator/co-principal investigator at the the National Cancer Institute-funded Siteman Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence project with Washington University in St. Louis, a project that entails design and development of nanomaterials and devices for cancer therapeutics, and nanofabrication training.  

The C-U Humanitarian Award is presented by the cities of Champaign and Urbana. Recipients were honored during a reception in Champaign on Oct. 18.


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This story was published October 31, 2007.