Chinese University of Hong Kong
Ernst Mach Fellow (2018–2019)

Md. Abu Sayem is an Islamic eco-theologian and environmental activist working on ecological sustainability and environmental ethics from religious perspectives. He is a Ph.D. Candidate in Religious Studies (under the supervision of Lai Pan Chiu and James D. Frankel) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong as well as a faculty member of the Department of World Religions and Culture at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh (where he also served as a Chairman from December 2011 to September 2012). He holds a B.A. (Hons.) in Arabic (1998), an M.A. in World Religions (2000), and an M.Phil. in World Religions and Culture (2010), all from the University of Dhaka. From 2012–2014, he was based at the University of Warsaw, Poland, taking part in the Erasmus Mundus Europe Asia (EMEA) mobility programme. From November 2014 to March 2015, he was a visiting scholar of Intercultural Theology at the University of Göttingen. In 2015 and 2016, he taught in the Department of Systematic Theology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. In 2015, he was trained for "Sustainable Development Goals and Cultural Transformation" at the Bergen Summer Research School, University of Bergen, Norway. While at the Department as an Ernst Mach Fellow from November 2018 to July 2019, he will continue his doctoral research on "Religious Perspectives on Environment Issues: A Comparative Study of John B. Cobb, Jr. and Seyyed Hossein Nasr." He already enjoys the beauty of the historical and vibrant city of Vienna, and appreciates its cosmopolitan and multicultural atmosphere.