Jayanta Bandyopadhyay was born in Calcutta (India) in 1947. After completing his doctorate in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, he turned his professional attention to the inter-discipline of science and technology studies, with special interest in sustainable development policy. He studied closely the forest conservation movement in the Indian Himalaya, named Chipko, which made him deeply interested in understanding the relationship between humans and the natural environment.

He was a member of the Senior Professional Staff at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (Kathmandu) and then became the Director of Research at the International Academy of Environment (Geneva). He is now Professor and Head of the Centre for Development and Environment Policy at the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta. His research in the past 25 years has been guided by the objective of generating trans-disciplinary public interest knowledge on critical issues related to sustainable development. He is currently the President of the South Asian Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Studies (Hyderabad). He acted as a Coordinating Lead Author for the Responses Working Group in the global exercise of Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and an expert reviewer for the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change in the area of climate change and water. At present he is a member of the Board of the International Society for Ecological Economics. He has published more than 100 papers, books, articles, etc.