Dr. M. Abul Kashem was born in June 1953 in a Muslim family in the village Arazi Sheikh Sundor at Barakhata union of Hatibandha Upazila under greater Rangpur district. He passed SSC examination from Baura Public High School in 1968 securing First Division. He passed HSC examination in 1970 from Rangpur College, Rangpur. He acquired B.Sc.Ag. (Honours) and M.Sc.(Ag.Ext.Ed.) degrees in 1974 and 1975 respectively from the Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh and got First classes in both the degrees. He attended a special study programme on "Extension Education, Administration, and Supervision in Extension" for six months during January to June 1979 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. He received Commonwealth Scholarship in 1983, studied at the University of Reading, UK for three years, and acquired the Ph.D. degree in 1986. He received JSPS Invitational Research Fellowship for 10 months during 1997 - 1998 and conducted a research study at the Hiroshima University, Japan.

Dr. Kashem started his service career in the Directorate of Agriculture (Extension & Management) in January 1977. He also worked at the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) for six months in the year 1978. He joined as Lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Extension and Teachers’ Training, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh in June 1978, and subsequently he joined as the Assistant Professor in 1980, Associate Professor in 1988 and finally Professor in 1993 in the same department. Occasionally he also worked as the consultant in various positions in different national and international organizations such as BARC, World Bank, FAO, USAID, UKAID, AusAID, European Commission, WorldFish Center and others. Dr. Kashem worked as the research supervisors of 14 PhD students and co-supervisors/members of many other PhD students. As a major supervisor he has supervised the research works of quite a good number of Masters students.

Dr. Kashem at present has in his credit three published text books and ten co-authored text books in the field of Extension Education, 37 research articles published in different foreign and international journals, and 145 research articles published in different national journals. He has participated quite a good number of seminars, conference, workshops and symposia both home and abroad. He traveled so far 25 countries; the countries are: USA, UK, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Japan, South Korea, The Netherlands, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Uganda, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, India, United Arab Emirate, Turkie, Nepal, Bhutan, and People’s Republic of China. He is the member of eight professional societies. He worked as the Editor, Bangladesh Journal of Extension Education for four years, from 1989 to 1992; worked as the Secretary General of the Bangladesh Agricultural Extension Society (BAES) from January 1993 to December 1996; worked as the President of BAES January 2004 to December 2008. Dr. Kashem worked as the Head, Department of Agricultural Extension Education, and Department of Languages, BAU, Mymensingh; worked as the Director, Bangladesh Agricultural University Extension Centre (BAUEC), and Agricultural museum.

Dr. M. Abul Kashem worked as the Quality Assurance Specialist (QAS), Quality Assurance Unit, HEQEP (Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project), University Grants Commission (UGC) of Bangladesh for 16 months from October 2015 to January 2017. Prior to join as the Vice-Chancellor of Teesta University (TU), Rangpur Dr. Kashem worked as the Vice-Chancellor of Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University (HSTU), Dinajpur for four years from February 2017 to January 2021.

Dr. Kashem is married with Sultana and is father of a daughter Dr. Fouzia Kashem – who has been blessed with two sons Ehan and Arish.