Nurul Islam is an Emeritus Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). He served as the Assistant Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), was the first Deputy Chairman of the Bangladesh Planning Commission, first Chairman of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Chairman of the Economics Department at Dhaka University, among other titles. He received an M.A. from Dhaka University and an MA and a PhD from Harvard University in Economics.