Bangladeshi origin Taher A Saif recognised as one of world's top engineers

Prof M Taher A Saif, who has been in the field of engineering for more than four decades, has been honoured with a membership of the National Academy of Engineering.

He was given the membership for characterising mechanical properties of materials at small scales, with applications in materials science and biology.

The National Academy of Engineering is an American nonprofit and non-governmental organisation. It is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Research Council.

This professor has been researching biohybrid robots for about 25 years at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and currently holds a position of a Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

He completed his PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the university of Cornell University in 1993, completed his Masters in Civil Engineering from Washington State University in 1987 and his Bachelors in Civil Engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (with Honors) in 1984, according to the National Academy of Engineering's website. 

Professor Saif has done extensive research on the mechanics of nanoscale materials and living cells.

He uses both theory and experiment to explore the effect of size on the mechanics of materials, and the role of mechanical force in determining the functionality of cells and cell clusters, reads his profile on the website of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Professor Saif demonstrated experimentally, for the first time, that plastic deformation in nanocrystalline metal films can be reversible.