Anurag Sharma, born on 7 May 1955, did his higher studies at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi from where he gained master's degrees in science and engineering and joined the institute as a member of faculty in 1978, simultaneously pursuing doctoral studies there under the guidance of Ajoy Ghatak. After securing a PhD a year later, he continued his service at IITD but had two sabbaticals; at Technical University of Karlsruhe as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow during 1982–83 for his post-doctoral work and a short stint as a visiting scientist at CSELT, Turin in 1988. At IITD, has served as the Dean of Students and Dean of Academics and has been holding the position of a professor at the department of physics since 1995. He is known to have done pioneering research in optoelectronics and optical communications and is credited with the development of analytical and numerical methods for dielectricoptical wave guides, single-mode fibers, Graded-Index devices and optical imaging system. He developed a protocol for tracing GRIN media for use in imaging systems as well as for characterizing inhomogeneous media and continues his researches on electromagnetic wave propagation in dielectric media. He has documented his researches in several articles; ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific articles, has listed 58 of them. Besides, he has edited four books viz. Guided Wave Optics: Selected Topics, Understanding Fiber Optics on a PC, International Conference on Fiber Optics and Photonics: Selected Papers from Photonics India '98,Photonics 2010: Tenth International Conference on Fiber Optics and Photonics . and Frontiers in Optics and Photonics 2011. Sharma is a member of the Optical Society of India, served as its vice president during 2008-12 and is the founder general secretary of the Delhi chapter of the Optical Society of America. He sits in the expert committee on physical sciences of the Fund for Improvement of S&T Infrastructure in Universities and other Higher Educational Institutions Program of the Department of Science and Technology He is also associated with Vidya Knowledge Park, an educational initiative based in the National Capital Region of India as a member of their advisory council and is a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Indian Institute of Technology, Patna. Apart from mentoring a number of students in their doctoral studies, he has delivered many keynote or invited speeches which include International Conference on Fiber Optics and Photonics 2000, South Asian Workshop on Optics & Photonics, "SAWOP-2015", and Workshop on Fiber Optics and Optical Communications . On the academic front, he was involved in the re-designing of academic courses at the under-graduate levels at IIT Delhi and it was during his tenure as the Dean of Academics, the institute introduced alumni participation in institute affairs.
