Dr S.P. Sharma is a professor and head of the Department of Geology and Geophysics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (West Bengal), India. His specialisation is Electrical and Electromagnetic geophysics. His research interest are groundwater and mineral exploration, numerical modelling and inversion, and global optimizations. Prof Sharma completed his Bachelor's and Master's degree at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi in 1995 and 1998, respectively. Prof Sharma completed PhD jointly at the National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad and Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi in 1994. He worked at the Groundwater Department, Rajasthan from 1994 to 1996 as a geophysicist. He was a post-doctoral fellow and project scientist at the University of Oulu, Finland from 1996 to 1999. Prof Sharma joined IIT Kharagpur in 1999 and is continuing there. Prof Sharma received the Centre of International Mobility (CIMO) fellowship 1996–1999. He also received the Marie Curie Fellowship in 2008 to visit EOTVOS Lorand Geophysical Institute, Budapest, Hungary. Prof Sharma was a specially appointed professor at Hokkaido University, Japan in 2015. He has published more than 70 research papers in reputed journals and attended a large number of national and international conferences. Prof Sharma has handled various sponsored research and industrial consultancy projects.