2020–present:
Director, Data Driven Decision Making @ Tufts
2010-present:
Director, Water Diplomacy Program
Think and Do
Shafiqul Islam
Professor at Tufts University
Civil and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering
Water Diplomacy, The Fletcher School
Director, D3M@Tufts
Director, Water Diplomacy Program
About
We THINK and DO. We integrate theory and practice. We synthesize scientific and social facts.
We work on availability, access, and allocation of water within the context of climate challenges, health, data driven decision making, and diplomacy. We seek interdisciplinary approaches to create actionable knowledge by blending science, engineering, policy, and politics in contextually relevant ways using complexity science, systems thinking, principled pragmatism, and negotiation theory.
Shafiqul (Shafik) Islam is a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a professor of water diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Dr. Islam is the Director of the Water Diplomacy Program and Data Driven Decision Making @ Tufts (D3M@Tufts). Professor Islam maintains a diverse network of national and international partnerships and is engaged in several national and international consulting and training practices in the United States, South Asia, Africa, and Middle East. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and Editor of Water Resources Research. Professor Islam is the recipient of the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Water Prize for Creativity. He has over one hundred publications and four books on water diplomacy. His first path breaking book on water diplomacy was translated in Chinese by the Science Press of China. His research and practice have been featured in numerous media outlets including the BBC World Service, Voice of America, Boston Globe, The Daily Star, Huffington Post, Nature, and Yale E360.
Education
Sc.D., Hydrometeorology and Hydroclimatology, MIT
M.S., Environmental Engineering, University of Maine
B.S., Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
Professional Experience
2008-present:
Professor of Water Diplomacy, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
2006-2009:
Associate Dean for Research, Tufts School of Engineering
2004-present:
Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts School of Engineering
1991-2004:
University of Cincinnati, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
2001-2004: Professor
2000-2004: Director of Graduate Studies
1997-2000: Associate Professor
1995-2004: Founding Director, Cincinnati Earth Systems Science Program
1991-1996: Assistant Professor
1983-1984:
Lecturer, Department of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
Selected Honors and Awards
2020: Elected Fellow, American Geophysical Union
2016: Creativity Award, Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water
2004: Bernard M. Gordon Senior Faculty Fellow in Engineering, Tufts University
2004: Distinguished Senior Faculty Research Award, University of Cincinnati College of Engineering
2001: Senior Fulbright Scholar
1984: Commonwealth Scholar in Engineering
Selected Professional Activities
2020-present: Editor, Water Resources Research
2017-present: Advisory Committee, International Science and Engineering, National Science Foundation
2012-present: Founding Editor, Anthem Water Diplomacy Series
1997-2001: Associate Editor, Reviews of Geophysics
1995-2001: Associate Editor, Water Resources Research
Research Themes
Our research group works on availability, access, and allocation of water within the context of climate challenges, water diplomacy, and data driven decision making. We seek interdisciplinary approaches to create actionable knowledge by blending science, engineering, policy, and politics in contextually relevant ways using complexity science, systems thinking, principled pragmatism, and negotiation theory.
“Climate is what you expect and weather is what you get”. This often used quote highlights the dichotomy of our understanding – between expectation and reality; short-time scale and long-time scale; micro and macro processes – and is at the core of our climate related water research. These problems essentially manifest themselves in the range of scales they span and boundaries they cross – from micro scale of cloud particles to impact of climate change at the global scale; from rain drops at your backyard creek to the asymmetric flow in the Ganges; from the warming of the Pacific ocean to creating floods in China; from the drought in Russia to floods in Pakistan – and create the knowledge gap we must address. Selected projects include:
- REQSIM: A Requisitely Simple Flood Forecasting Platform
- Hydrology-Guided Deep Neural Network for Extreme Flood Prediction
- A Precipitation Dipole in Eastern North America: Issues of Space-Time Variability and Physical Mechanisms
- A Diagnostic Study of Possible Enhancement of the Hydrologic Cycle
- Tracking and Predicting Cholera Outbreaks from Satellites
Many of our water problems are complex because they cross physical, disciplinary and jurisdictional boundaries. Water, viewed as a fixed resource, lends itself to conflicts over its division.
Origins of most water problems may be understood as intricate coupling among natural, societal, and political domains where people and problems interact to shape the framing of the problem. The search for scientific bases - without understanding the societal issues and driving values - to address water issues make these problems complex because the underlying policy issues cannot be definitively described or separated from political context. A synthesis of explicit (scientific water information from natural domain) and tacit (contextual water information from societal domain) knowledge of water is needed to transform fixed water quantity into a flexible resource.
Many contemporary and emerging water issues do not have clear solutions. We make a distinction between two types of water issues (water problems that have solutions and water conditions that may only have resolution. Think of a medical analogy: broken leg is a problem and surgery is a solution while diabetes, for now, is a condition that needs management and does not have a solution). Our focus is to address water issues with competing needs through negotiated resolutions and adaptive management.
We pursue interdisciplinary water scholarship by thinking across boundaries, emphasizing integration of explicit and tacit knowledge, and linking knowledge and action from multiple perspectives to help resolve water issues. More information on water diplomacy related projects and initiatives are here:
Water Diplomacy: Key Ideas and Framework
Foundations of Water Diplomacy
Water Diplomacy: Practice and Perspectives
“No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story,” explained Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman. Telling stories, while remaining true to the data, is a defining challenge of this century. Narratives are persuasive but not objective; numbers are often objective but not persuasive. For science to provide the broadest beneficial impact to society, its findings need to be communicated with both scientific integrity and authentic empathy.
D3M@Tufts — sponsored by the US National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award — educates two types of Data Professionals. Policy-Savvy Data Experts from STEM discipline and Data-Proficient Decision Makers from non-STEM discipline who synthesize numbers and narratives to design and implement data-driven solutions that are technically efficient and contextually appropriate. Two academic pathways are shown on how students from the D3M@Tufts program become Data Professionals receiving their disciplinary degree and a D3M@Tufts Certificate without prolonging their time for graduation with a focus on three overarching ideas: Connecting Numbers and Narratives; Learning How to Learn; and Embracing Complexity.
d3m.tufts.edu - up-to-date information on all of the D3M@Tufts initiatives
Publications
Selected publications are listed below. For a full list of publications, visit the Publications page.
On the web
Students and Collaborators
Our research group integrates “theory and practice” and “think and do” to create actionable knowledge. We work with a diverse group of talented students, post-doctoral fellows, and a network of national and international partners to conduct interdisciplinary collaborative research for a wide range of problems focusing on water, health, and climate. We maintain an active national and international consulting with a diverse group of collaborators and institutions.
Contact and Collaborate
We are looking for creative minds who think like philosophers and act like problem solvers. To initiate a conversation, please send a brief description of your interests, and discuss how your interests and expertise are aligned with or complementary to the problems we are pursuing to develop actionable outcomes.