Upon completion of medical graduation from Dhaka Medical College, Bangladesh in !982, Dr Quaiyum’s professional career in population, maternal, neonatal and child health, and other reproductive health research began with Bangladesh Institute of Research for Promotion of Essential and Reproductive Health and Technologies (BIRPERHT), a very reputed research organization in Bangladesh. During his five years of association with BIRPERHT provided him with a solid foundation in different research methodologies.

He then joined the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) in 1994 and served the organization for more than 25 years in different positions in different divisions. He retired from the position of Associate Scientist in the Maternal and Child Health Division (MCHD) of icddr,b on 31 December 2019. Dr Quaiyum’s research interests are to design and evaluate cost-effective interventions to improve health status of mothers and neonates in the resource poor countries.  His work on maternal and child health includes different low-cost interventions to prevent maternal mortality and morbidity from haemorrhage, hypertensive disorders in pregnancy, maternal infections and pregnancy outcome. One of his key innovation is ‘icddr,b Q-Mat’, a simple tool to recognize postpartum haemorrhage cases even by a lay person at the community level. His other research interests are genetic and environmental factors associated with preterm birth, etiology of severe neonatal infections and impact assessment of PCV vaccine, etc. He was involved in studies ranging from large community trial to program evaluation. He also provided technical assistance to different public and NGO programs. Dr Quaiyum enjoys working on crosscutting issues collaborating with other researchers from home and abroad. He served as a reviewer for JHPN and Health and Science Bulletin published by icddr,b. Dr Quaiyum has presented numerous scientific papers in national and international conferences and seminars and papers published in international journals.