Md. Kawsar Ahmed

Education

• PhD in BME (2024-contd.), University of Virginia
• M.Sc. in BME (2021-2024.), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
• B.Sc. in BME (2021), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

Research Interests

Medical Imaging, Artificial Intelligence, Medical Device Design and Fabrication, Clinical Trials.

Research Experience

Projects:

OxyJet CPAP – A Low Cost, Electricity free, Noninvasive Ventilation Device
Supervisor: Dr. Taufiq Hasan, Associate Professor, Department of BME, BUET.

• OxyJet CPAP has been developed to support hypoxemic patient outside critical care. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was developed to address the severe shortage of ICUs and to provide higher-level respiratory support in general wards or resource-limited settings.
• OxyJet was acknowledged in the 2022 publication “Good Practices in South-South and Triangular Cooperation” by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC).
• On July 28, 2021, the device received limited approval for hospital by the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA), the medical device regulatory authority of Bangladesh.

Deep Learning-Based Decoding of Motor Imagery for Practical Brain-Computer Interfaces
Supervisor: Dr. Muhammad Abdullah Arafat, Assistant Professor, Department of EEE, BUET.

• Developed an AI based algorithm to detect sleep apnea and motor imagery classification from EEG signals.

Clinical Trials:

OxyJet CPAP April 2023 – July 2023
Supervisor: Dr. Taufiq Hasan, Associate Professor, Department of BME, BUET.

• A randomized controlled trial was performed from April 17 to July 9, 2021, on 45 severely hypoxemic COVID-19 patients, between the OxyJet CPAP and the conventional high-flow nasal cannula, in Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04681859).
• OxyJet CPAP demonstrated comparable outcomes to high-flow nasal cannula treatment in supporting hypoxemic COVID-19 patients in general wards/pre-ICU settings.

Smile-Geist: Surgical Guide for Dental Implant Ongoing
Supervisor: Md. Kawsar Ahmed, Assistant Professor, Department of BME, BUET. Aug 2023 – Mar 2024

• This project introduces patient-centered surgical guide-assisted dental implant surgery for the very first time in Bangladesh, aiming to advance digitalized dental care.
• A randomized controlled trial is ongoing from August 2023, on 28 patients, to compare the accuracy between surgical guide assisted full-guided with free-hand dental implant surgeries, in Dhaka Dental College Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT05983718).

Honors and Awards

• 1st runner-up in Global Health, Johns Hopkins Healthcare Design Competition: “Smile-Geist: Surgical Guide for Dental Implant” (2023).
•  Winner in Bangabandhu Innovation Grant (BIG) “OxyJet: A low-cost electricity-free CPAP for ICU Prevention of COVID-19 Patients” (2021).
• Winner in Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Medtronic Student Design Competition for “OxyJet” (2021).
• Global Winner of IMAGINE IF! – Innovation Forum (UK) for “OxyJet” (2021).
• Winner of IDEA – Startup Bangladesh for “OxyJet” (2020).
• Champion in IEEE Young Professionals Idea Contest: “To Mitigate Post-COVID Impact in Low- and Middle- Income Countries” (2020).
• Winner in National Hackathon, organized by the Ministry of ICT, Bangladesh (2016).
• Champion in the Industrial Automation Challenge, organized by Robotics Society of BUET (2016).
• Secured Dean’s List Scholarship in all academic Levels of Undergraduate study.
• Secured University Merit Scholarship in academic terms (2018, 2019) of Undergraduate study.

Professional Experience

Graduate Research  Assistant – Department of Biomedical Engineering, Univerity of Virginia, August 2024 – Present.

Assistant Professor (on leave)– Department of Biomedical Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), March 2024 – Present.

Lecturer – Department of Biomedical Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), March 2021 – 2024.

Affiliated with mHealth Lab, Department of Biomedical Engineering,
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, March 2021 – August 2024.

Patent

1. Hasan, T., Ahmed, M. K., Rashid, M., Alman, K. A., Muhib, F., Needle based precision venturi flow-generator for positive pressure ventilation. United States Patent No#,US 11793958 Oct. 24, 2023.

Publications

1. Ahmed, M. K., Alman, K. A., Rashid, M., Muhib, F., Rahman, S., Noor, N., Islam, M. K., Chowdhury, F. U. H., Sharif, M. M., Ratul, R. H., Jahan, S., Miah, M. T., Amin, R., Labrique, A. B., Khan, Y., & Hasan, T.* (2025). OxyJet CPAP: An electricity-free low-cost emergency respiratory support device, under review in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.
2. Chisti, M. J.*, Rahman, A. E., Hasan, T., Ahmed, T., Arifeen, S. E., Clemens, J. D., Mirza, A. S., Rahman, H. M., Uddin, M. F., Amin, M. R., Miah, M. T., Islam, M. K., Sharif, M., Shahid, A. S. M. S. B., Ahmed, A., Banik, G., Rashid, M., Ahmed, M. K. et al (2023). Evaluation of feasibility phase of adaptive version of locally made bubble continuous positive airway pressure oxygen therapy for the treatment of COVID-19 positive and negative adults with severe pneumonia and hypoxemia, accepted in Journal of Global Health. (Link)
3. Hossain, M. I., Zunaed, M., Ahmed, M. K., Hossain, S. M. J., Hasan, A., and Hasan, T.* (2023). ThoraX-PriorNet: A Novel Attention-Based Architecture Using Anatomical Prior Probability Maps for Thoracic Disease Classification, under review in IEEE Access. (Link)