Remembering Md. Babar

Our doctoral student, Md. Babar, passed away on 6 January 2022.

Md. Babar commenced his PhD, supervised by Professor Ahsan Habib and Dr Mabel Costa, in September 2019. His thesis examined ‘Product market competition (PMC) as an external governance mechanism’.

Babar lost his father at an early age. His mother raised him and his younger sister, which was extremely challenging in Bangladesh. However, Babar managed to overcome many of the hardships and came to New Zealand in 2018 to fulfil his long-cherished dream of obtaining a PhD degree.

He got married in January 2018 before coming to NZ and became a proud father later that year. However, he could not go back to Bangladesh to see his family and the new born baby son because he was a self-funded student and had to work at Countdown supermarket twice a week to cover his living costs In Aotearoa New Zealand. Unfortunately, his initial enrolment in the PhD program at VUW in 2018 did not go as planned and he had to move to Massey in September 2019 to start his PhD supervised by Professor Habib and Dr Costa. He was also working at New World supermarket and had to request his family and others in his home country to lend him the tuition fees. He planned to return to his workplace, Jagannath University, soon after finishing the PhD and start paying off the debts gradually.

A Massey University kohā would greatly assist his family during this difficult time.