Ashfaqur Rahman Wins Syracuse PhD Place With Fellowship Worth About Tk 98 Lakh a Year

Bangladeshi student S M Ashfaqur Rahman has won admission to a PhD programme at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs with the prestigious Maxwell Fellowship. The Maxwell School is known worldwide as a leading institution for public affairs and social policy research.

Under the fellowship, Syracuse University will spend about 80,460 US dollars a year for him — about Tk 98 lakh — including a tuition scholarship, fellowship and assistantship stipends and a health insurance subsidy.

Ashfaqur Rahman's PhD programme runs for five years. That means the university will spend about Tk five crore on him over five years.

His research life began in the sociology department of the University of Chittagong, where he completed his bachelor's and master's degrees. His master's thesis there was on the Rohingya crisis and modern governance.

He then came to the United States in 2024 for a second master's degree. With a full-funding scholarship, he enrolled in the sociology and leadership department at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

His second master's thesis paper at Minnesota State University won first prize as the best research paper of the State Society on Aging of New York (SSANY). In 2025 he also took first place in the Best Graduate Student Research Paper competition organised by the Midwest Sociological Society in the United States. He also topped the Sociologists of Minnesota's Caroline Rose Research Paper competition.

Ashfaqur Rahman is researching how social structures such as surveillance affect the safety and lives of older people in severe winter conditions.

At Minnesota State University's Center for Excellence in Scholarship and Research, he worked as a graduate research assistant and research consultant. He was also involved as a research assistant with various international organisations, including Johns Hopkins University's Center for Communication Programs and BBC Media Action.

On the new phase of research at Syracuse University, S M Ashfaqur Rahman said he wants to advance work on older people's health, technology and environmental sociology. In the future, he hopes to contribute international-standard research on elderly healthcare, policymaking and structural inequality in Bangladesh.