Dipakranjan Mal began his studies at Calcutta University, where he received 1st class B.Sc.-Hons (1972) and M.Sc. (1975) degrees. He attended the University of Missouri at Kansas City for his Ph.D. degree in 1981 on intramolecular hydrogen bonding under Professor Layton L. McCoy. After a 3-year postdoctoral stint with Professor Frank M. Hauser at Oregon Graduate Center, he joined Bose Institute, Kolkata as a lecturer in 1984. Since 1987, he has been with the department of chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, where he is now a higher administrative grade professor. His research interests are focused on the development of anionic and thermal domino strategies and total synthesis of angucyclines, anthracyclines, carbazoles, furocoumarins, and phthalide natural products. His notable discoveries are i) decarboxylative [4 + 2] annulation, ii) anionic [4 + 3] annulation and iii) an olefination based on thiophthalides. He has supervised 30 doctoral students and published over 130 research publications, including two reviews in Chemical Reviews. He has developed a 40-lecture video course on "Heterocyclic Chemistry available on YouTube. He received the honor certificate of Phi Kappa Phi, U.S., in 1978. Recently, he was inducted as a Fellow of the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology as well as Royal Society of Chemistry.