UMB professor Jalal Alamgir passed away in a tragic accident while vacationing in Phuket, Thailand on December 3, 2011. In addition to serving as a tenured Associated Professor at UMB, he was a fellow of the South Asia Initiative at Harvard University. Alamgir was a member of Drishtipat, a global network of Bangladeshi activists, and participated in the Drishtipat Writers’ Collective. In 2007, he led a campaign protesting the detention of his father, Member of Parliament Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, by Bangladesh’s military-led caretaker government. Alamgir cycled 85 miles for the Pan-Mass Challenge to raise funds for cancer research, inspired by the experience of his mother’s treatment for cancer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

As a devoted teacher, Alamgir was known for his creative and inspiring approach to making the discipline of international relations not only understandable to students, but also pertinent to their daily concerns. He was described as a deeply committed researcher and scholar who never divorced questions of social justice from the understanding of power and politics, and who endeavored to make the Third World, and Asia in particular, relevant not only to world politics but also to U.S. policy.

Jalal Alamgir is to be deeply mourned by his wife Fazeela Morshed, parents Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir and Sitara Alamgir in Bangladesh, brother Joy Alamgir and sister-in-law Nuzhat Alamgir in Boston, and family and friends around the globe.

A memorial gathering will be held on Tuesday, December 13 from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Political Science department located on the fourth floor of Wheatley Hall. Students and faculty are also welcomed to stop by the department at any time to sign in the condolence book.