Dr Manjur A. Chowdhury was born into a prominent family in the Madaripur district of Dattapara. His father was a government official. After completing his secondary education at Dhaka College, Dr Chowdhury was enrolled at the University of Dhaka, where he earned a B.Sc. (Hons) in Zoology and an M.Sc. in Entomology. His M.Sc. study was conducted at the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC). Dr Chowdhury joined BAEC as a Scientific Officer after getting his M.Sc. Later, he served as an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Fellow at Seibersdorf Lab in Austria and the USDA’s Insect Biology and Population Management Lab in Tifton, Georgia. He subsequently went on to earn a PhD in Entomology at the University of Georgia. After receiving his PhD, Dr Chowdhury joined Kansas State University as a Post Doctoral Research Associate at Southwest Research Extension Center, Garden City, KS.

Dr Manjur Chowdhury returned to Bangladesh in 1989 and established SAFEWAY, a pest treatment company. He  also collaborated on research projects with the ICDDR,B, the University of Dhaka, and Jahangirnagar University. Dr Chowdhury has multiple research articles published in top publications in his profession.

Dr Chowdhury is also associated with several organisations. He was the President of the Zoological Society of Bangladesh (ZSB). Before that, he was the General Secretary of ZSB, one of Bangladesh’s oldest scientific organisations. He occasionally writes essays for local newspapers about social and environmental issues. He also appears on numerous television discussion shows and participates in educational efforts in rural regions. He is also the current chairman of the think tank Centre for Governance Studies (CGS).