Profile

Professor M Rafiuddin Ahmed

• Researcher
• University of the South Pacific

Dr. M. R. Ahmed is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of the South Pacific and is the Principal Supervisor of a PhD student who is working on floating mangroves project. He started working on hydroponic growth of Rhizophora family of mangroves in 2023 with the idea of taking it forward to make a floating mangrove structure that can withstand strong hydrodynamic forces. His main interest is in sustainable engineering with focus both on climate change mitigation and adaptation. He has been working in the area of renewable energy including wave and tidal current energy for more than 15 years.

His research in the project Halo is aimed at designing and deploying a number of floating mangroves in such a way that they not only protect the coastline, but at the same time, the energy in the resulting flow can be harvested using a suitable wave energy device.

He is excited about working as part of a big team of researchers and hopes that his idea of both coastal protection and energy generation can become a game changer.