Sunil Bajpai (born 30 September 1961) is the

Chair A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. It may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in vario ...

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Vertebrate Paleontology Vertebrate paleontology is the subfield of paleontology that seeks to discover, through the study of fossilized remains, the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct vertebrates (animals with vertebrae and their descendants). It also t ...

in the Department of Earth Sciences,

Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee The Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT- Roorkee or IIT-R) is a technical university located in Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India. It is the oldest engineering institution in India. It was founded as the College of Civil Engineering in 1847 d ...

. He is in service as a professor at IIT Roorkee since 1st January 1996 till 30 September 2026. He also served as the director of the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences from January 2013 to July 2018. Sunil Bajpai predominantly works on the

Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

vertebrates of India with focus on marine mammals, such as whales and sea cows. Bajpai and his collaborators fossil discoveries from the Eocene of Kutch (

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

) and the Himalayas have helped in understanding how whales have evolved. Bajpai also works on land mammals, which includes the early representatives of horses, artiodactyls, and primates, such as the stem perissodactyl family

Cambaytheriidae Cambaytheriidae is a family of primitive four or five-toed ungulates native to the Indian subcontinent. They lived during the Early Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years a ...

, artiodactyl ''Gujaratia,'' and primates such as the adapoid '' Marcgodinotius'' and the omomyid
Vastanomys
'' Additionally, he has worked on many other fossil vertebrates such as sharks, bony fishes, frogs, snakes, lizards, insectivores, rodents, etc. He has also been involved in studies of latest

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

Paleocene The Paleocene ( ), or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 mya (unit), million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), ...

faunas of the Deccan volcanic province of India and their implications in understanding the northward drift of the Indian tectonic plate. In 2023, Bajpai and colleagues reported on '' Tharosaurus indicus'', India's first dicraeosaurid dinosaur, from the

Thar Desert The Thar Desert (), also known as the Great Indian Desert, is an arid region in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent that covers an area of in India and Pakistan. It is the world's 18th-largest desert, and the world's 9th-large ...

of Jaisalmer, Rajasthan state, western India. The fossils were unearthed from Middle Jurassic outcrops of the Jaisalmer Formation. The taxon likely represents the oldest known record of this group and, seen in conjunction with previously known early Jurassic sauropods from India (''

Barapasaurus ''Barapasaurus'' ( ) is a genus of Basal (phylogenetics), basal sauropod dinosaur from Jurassic rocks of India. The only species is ''B. tagorei''. ''Barapasaurus'' comes from the lower part of the Kota Formation, which is of Early to Middle J ...

'', ''

Kotasaurus ''Kotasaurus'' ( ; meaning " Kota Formation lizard") is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Early Jurassic period (Sinemurian– Pliensbachian). The only known species is ''Kotasaurus yamanpalliensis''. It was discovered in the Kota Formation ...

''), suggests that what is now India may have been a major centre for neosauropod evolution. In 2024, he coauthored the descriptions of what may be the largest known madtsoiid snake, '' Vasuki indicus'' from Naredi Formation, and the

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

'' Indotriconodon'' from the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...

Intertrappean Beds.

Education

Bajpai carried out his Ph.D. studies in

Paleontology Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure ge ...

from the Centre of Advanced Study in Geology,

Panjab University Panjab University (PU) is an Indian collegiate public state university located in Chandigarh. Funded through both State and Union governments, it is considered a state university. It traces its origins to the University of the Punjab in Lahor ...

, Chandigarh, in 1990.

Honors and awards

* Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India (2008) * Fellow of the

Indian Academy of Sciences The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore was founded by Indian Physicist and List of Nobel laureates, Nobel Laureate Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, C. V. Raman, and was registered as a society on 27 April 1934. Inaugurated on 31 July 1934, it ...

(2007) * National Geoscience Award, Ministry of Mines, Government of India (2014) * National award for Geosciences and Technology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt of India (2018) *
Ptilotrypa bajpaii
' a fossil bryozoan, and ''Limnocythere bajpaii'' a fossil ostracod are named after Bajpai in recognition of his contributions

Collaborators

J. G. M. Thewissen, the Dutch-American Paleontologist from the Northeast Ohio Medical University, Rootstow, whose research is mainly focused on whale evolution, an
Daryl Domning
from

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

Washington D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, specialist of fossil sirenians have been the main collaborators of Bajpai.

Selected publications

* * Bajpai, Sunil; Kapur, Vivesh V; Das, Debasis P; Tiwari, B N; Saravanan, N; Sharma, Ritu (2005)
Early Eocene land mammals from the Vastan Lignite Mine, District Surat (Gujarat), western India
Journal of the Palaeontological Society of India. * Bajpai, Sunil; Kay, Richard F.; Williams, Blythe A.; Das, Debasis P.; Kapur, Vivesh V.; Tiwari, B. N. (2008). "The oldest Asian record of Anthropoidea". ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA''. 105 (32): 11093–11098. doi:10.1073/pnas.0804159105.

ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit to uniquely identify a periodical publication (periodical), such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs a ...

0027-8424. * * *

References

External links

Sunil Bajpai, Institute Chair Professor, IIT Roorkee
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bajpai, Sunil Living people Panjab University alumni Indian paleontologists Vertebrate paleontologists Fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences 1961 births