Sushanta Dattagupta, was born in Kolkata, West Bengal, India on 19 December 1947[3] and graduated in Physics (BSc Hons), in 1965, from the University of Calcutta.

[2][3] In 1969, Dattagupta went to the US to join the Brookhaven National Laboratory and St. John's University where he did his doctoral research to obtain a PhD in Physics, in 1973.

[1][2][3] Dattagupta returned to India in 1976 to join the Materials Science Laboratory, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu where he worked as a scientific officer till 1981.

In 1986, Dattagupta was offered a job at the Jawaharlal Nehru University where he taught till 1999, first as a Professor and later as the Dean of the School of Physical Sciences.

When the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata (IISER)[6] was established at Mohanpur, West Bengal, in July 2006, under the aegis of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, Dattagupta was its first director.