Md Enayet Chowdhury
Ph.D. Student and Graduate Research Assistant
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin)
Biography
Md Enayet Chowdhury is a third-year Ph.D. student in Civil Engineering (Environmental and Water Resources Engineering program) at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), advised by Dr. Jun-Whan Lee. His research focuses on hydrology and water resources, with an emphasis on coastal and compound flooding (flooding caused by two or more drivers acting together, such as storm surge, rainfall, and river flow). Since beginning his Ph.D. in August 2024, he has published research in the Journal of Hydrology, has two more manuscripts under review, and has another in preparation. He has also contributed, as a Future Investigator, to a NASA FINESST research proposal that is currently under review. He has presented his research at UT Austin and at international conferences, and he was a finalist in UT Austin’s 2026 Empower Your Research Pitch Competition. He has served as a teaching assistant for an undergraduate fluid mechanics course. Before starting his Ph.D., he served on the faculty of the Institute of Water and Flood Management (IWFM), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), first as a Lecturer and later as an Assistant Professor, gaining nearly five years of university teaching experience; he is currently an Assistant Professor on study leave from BUET. He also communicates science to the public through his Bengali-language educational YouTube channel, which has more than 870,000 subscribers, and he is the author of the Bengali-language engineering book Padma Setu (The Padma Bridge).
Who Is Your Flood Criminal?
My finalist research pitch at the Empower Your Research Pitch 2026 Finale, The University of Texas at Austin
Click the video to watch it right here, or watch it on LinkedIn.
Empower Your Research Pitch is the annual research pitch competition at UT Austin, organized by the Graduate School. In my pitch, I explain in simple words why it is important to identify the factors driving a flood (such as rainfall, river flow, and storm surge) and how knowing them helps us develop targeted, location-specific solutions for each flood event.
- Audience: a room of 70–120 people, most of whom had no engineering background
- What I learned: how to explain my research to people outside my field, which now makes me more confident at conferences and in conversations about my work
Things I do for my living!
Whatever I do I enjoy my life through it
1
I Teach
Teaching lets me engage with future intellectual minds and share ideas on a consistent basis. I am really grateful to the Almighty for this opportunity.
- Graduate Teaching Assistant for CE 319F: Elementary Mechanics of Fluids, The University of Texas at Austin
- Assistant Professor (on study leave for my Ph.D.), Institute of Water and Flood Management (IWFM), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)
- Lecturer, IWFM, BUET
- Part-time Lecturer, Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST), Dhaka
- Mentor for undergraduate researchers at the Compound Flood Lab (UT Austin) and at the Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering (CAEE) Hackathon
2
I Research
Since August 2024, I have been a Ph.D. student and Graduate Research Assistant at The University of Texas at Austin, advised by Dr. Jun-Whan Lee in the Compound Flood Lab. I study compound flooding: flooding caused by two or more drivers acting together, such as storm surge, rainfall, and river flow.
Current focus
- Flood-driver attribution using Shapley values, a game-theory method that divides an outcome fairly among the factors that produced it
- Physics-based hydrodynamic modeling with ADCIRC and SFINCS on high-performance computers
- Remote sensing for flood modeling
- Funded projects supported by the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT)
- Before my Ph.D. (IWFM, BUET, 2019 – 2024): flash flood forecasting and the climate resilience of coastal areas. My research career began in 2017 with a study of the river training work of the Padma River.
3
I Write
As a student of Civil Engineering, I am very much obsessed with the background and development of Civil Engineering, so I write about it in simple Bengali for every curious reader.
A book about the biggest structural project of my country. It explains how the bridge was built, the related civil engineering concepts, its earlier plans, and the scientific studies behind it.
- Informative blogs that help many people acquire knowledge, on platforms such as Roar Bangla
4
I Create Multimedia Contents
On May 27, 2020, I started making Bengali edutainment (education + entertainment) videos on YouTube and Facebook. At that time, Bangladeshi YouTube had no significant edutainment channel; I started this genre in Bangladesh.
Awards
- Best Content Creator (Education / Well Being category), Blender’s Choice–The Daily Star OTT & Digital Content Awards 2022
- Infotainment category award, Marvel of Tomorrow Season 2 Influencers Fest and Award
The most recent research papers that have been published in popular journals
My Selected Publications
PADMA SETU (পদ্মা সেতু)
MD ENAYET CHOWDHURY
The Padma Multipurpose Bridge, opened in June 2022, is a significant milestone for Bangladesh: it is the longest (by both span and total length) and most technically challenging bridge ever built in the country. It is a long-standing regret of Bangladeshi engineers that they do not get proper opportunity in large and complex civil engineering works. The grief may be alleviated by this bridge, on which a large number of Bangladeshi engineers worked. It connects the 21 districts of the south-western region with the rest of the country and is changing the economic situation of the whole of Bangladesh.
The book focuses on the analysis of the structural aspects of the construction of the Padma Bridge. Attempts have been made to present various civil engineering concepts related to bridges in simple language and with the help of understandable examples. Not only the time of construction of the bridge but also its previous plans, relevant scientific studies and general knowledge have been presented separately. The book was first published by The University Press Limited (UPL) in 2020 (ISBN: 9789849422297), and its second print was published in 2022.
I have been featured on some renowned national media
Top Media Appearances
What I Do On YouTube
I'm All About One Thing: Attracting More People in the Realm of Knowledge and Critical Thinking!
I Help People To Think Critically
I am known for spreading knowledge through most of my YouTube videos. I do a comprehensible analysis of the contemporary issues regarding the international relationship, economic conditions, historically significant events and similar other things. I make each video based on proper research with enough data. My main goal is to increase the knowledge of the people of my country by presenting these critical issues in a simple way.
And of course proudly representing Bangladesh on global level!
I drop videos Every Wednesday at 5 PM
Popular videos on my channel
Some genius people showing love through their creativity
Fan arts!
