Islam, an internationally reputed scientist in agrobiotechnology, has played a key role in establishing the Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering at BSMRAU, Bangladesh. He did PhD at Hokkaido University (HU), and postdoctoral research at the HU, University of Goettingen, University of Nottingham, and West Virginia University under the fellowship programs of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Alexander von Humboldt, Commonwealth, and Fulbright, respectively. He is one of the top 2% of researchers in the world. He collaborated with Sophien Kamoun and led international scientists to rapidly identify the origin of the first epidemic outbreak of wheat blast in Bangladesh. His team developed a novel rapid diagnosis of wheat blast fungus in collaboration with researchers in China and the USA. He is Editor-in-Chief of Bacilli and Agrobiotechnology, and CRISPR-Cas Methods, and Editor of Physiologia Plantarum, Scientific Reports, Physiologia Plantarum, PLOS One, Frontiers in Microbiology, and CAB Reviews. He is an elected Fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences and the American Phytopathological Society. He received many awards and medals for his accomplishments.

Naqib is currently serving as a Professor at the Department of Physics, University of Rajshahi, where he is leading the theoretical condensed matter research group. In terms of scientific productivity, this group ranks among the top in Bangladesh, and has been consistently producing high-quality publications in the fields of computational condensed matter physics, and superconductivity in hole doped cuprates. Naqib obtained his PhD from Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK, in 2003. He had postdoctoral experience both at the Quantum Matter Group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK, and at the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, New Zealand. His research interests include superconductivity in high-Tc cuprates, magnetic and transport properties of strongly correlated electronic systems, DFT calculations on MAX phase nanolaminates, superhard materials, novel low-Tc superconducting systems and topological insulators, semimetals and superconductors. Naqib has published 130 papers in Scopus indexed journals of international repute so far. His papers have been cited over 2200 times.