He was also the director of the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station.
[2] He earned his bachelor's degree in 1978 from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka.
[3] After graduating in 1986, Mannan was hired as an assistant professor with the School of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Oklahoma.
He remained at the University of Oklahoma until 1990, when he became the Division Director for RMT, Inc., a nationwide engineering services company.
In 1994, he was appointed Vice President of RMT, Inc. With encouragement from his mentor Trevor Kletz, Mannan left industry in 1997[4] to accept the position of director of the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center and associate professor at Texas A&M University.