Tapan Misra is an Indian scientist who is an incumbent director of Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation and Physical Research Laboratory.
Tapan Misra was born in 1961 in Rayagada, Odisha. He studied Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering in 1984 from Jadavpur University, Kolkata as J C Bose National Talent Search (JBNSTS) Scholar.
He started his career as digital hardware engineer and involved in Microwave Remote Sensing payloads in SAC. He managed system engineering of Multi-frequency Scanning Microwave Radiometer (MSMR) payload for IRS-P4 during 1995-1999.
He was involved in design for the development of C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) of the RISAT-1. He wrote an algorithm for real-time processing of SAR data during his stint as a guest scientist in the German Aerospace Agency in 1990. He was also associated with development of the multi-frequency scanning microwave radiometer instrument of Oceansat-1 and Scanning Scatterometer of Oceansat-2. He served as the deputy director of microwave remote sensing area of Space Applications Centre before being appointed as the director in February 2015. He also heads the Office of Innovations Management, ISRO, Bangalore. Since June 1, 2016, he is also having additional charge of Director, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.
He received Vikram Sarabhai Research Award in 2004 and ISRO Merit award in 2008 for his contribution of development of SAR technology. He was elected as Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering in 2007. He was elected Corresponding Member of International Academy of Astronautics in 2008. He holds two granted patents, six pending patents. He has five copyrights and more than twenty five papers to his credit.