Dipankar Das Sarma was born on 15 September 1955 in Kolkata, in West Bengal. He did a five-year integrated masters course in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1977 and enrolled for research at the Indian Institute of Science, (IISc) Bengaluru from where he secured his PhD in 1982 under the tutelage of renowned solid state chemist, C. N. R. Rao. He worked as a research associate at IISc for one year (1982–83), moved to Forschungszentrum Jülich, (Jülich Research Centre) Germany as a guest scientist in 1984 and returned to IISc as a lecturer in 1986. He stayed at IISc where he became the assistant professor in 1989, associate professor in 1993 and a professor in 1999. He remains a professor at Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit at the institution. He also served as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo (2001–02) and at the Istituto di Struttura della Materia, CNR at their Rome and Trieste centres in 2002.