[4] After securing a PhD a year later, he continued his service at IITD but had two sabbaticals; at Technical University of Karlsruhe as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow during 1982–83 for his post-doctoral work and a short stint as a visiting scientist at CSELT, Turin in 1988.

[17] Sharma is a member of the Optical Society of India,[18] served as its vice president during 2008–12 and is the founder general secretary of the Delhi chapter of Optica.

[4] He sits in the expert committee on physical sciences of the Fund for Improvement of S&T Infrastructure in Universities and other Higher Educational Institutions (FIST) Program of the Department of Science and Technology[19] He is also associated with Vidya Knowledge Park, an educational initiative based in the National Capital Region of India as a member of their advisory council[20] and is a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Indian Institute of Technology Patna.

[25] Sharma received the Young Scientist Medal of the Indian National Science Academy in 1986;[26] INSA would honor him again in 1991 with the Anil Kumar Bose Memorial Award.

[29] A year later, he received the 1999 Meghnad Saha Award for Research in Theoretical Sciences of the University Grants Commission of India.

[30] The National Academy of Sciences, India elected him as a fellow in 1998[31] and Abdus Salam Centre awarded him the Senior Associate-ship for the term 2001–08.