Dr. Prabir Sarkar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar. He is the founding chairman of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) cell of the Institute. Before joining IIT Ropar, he was working as an Associate Researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), U.S. Department of Commerce Gaithersburg, USA.

Dr. Sarkar completed his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore in Design Creativity. He did his Master of Design also from IISc on Product Design and Engineering. He worked for Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) in the R&D division after completing his masters.

Dr. Sarkar’s research interests include product design, sustainability, creativity, and design research. He is interested in developing new methods and tools for helping designers and companies to design novel, useful, and sustainable products. He has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications. 

His research group is engaged in research on Eco-design, bio-mimicry, engineering aesthetics, sustainable machining, and design creativity. Recently he is also working on developing products for rural applications. 

He is an editorial board member of Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, Emerald and is a reviewer of several journals and conferences. Dr. Sarkar secured jointly funding of more than 100 crores from various external funding agencies. He is currently a fellow of the Institute of Engineers, India.