Born in Calcutta on November 3, 1944, Debasis Mitra received his BSc and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from London University in 1964 and 1967 respectively. He was a research fellow of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority from 1965 to 1967 where he developed techniques for modelling and controlling large atomic energy systems. In 1968, he moved to the US to join Bell Labs and was the head of Bell Labs Math Center. He is currently the vice president of the Mathematics Sciences Research Center.

Mitra has been involved in the past with research on asymptotic theories for large stochastic networks, and asynchronous computations on massively parallel processors. He has worked on broadband networking and is at present working on optical networking, IP/optical convergence, business planning of broadband networks and combining economics and network engineering, with focus on network congestion His contributions to DSP and adaptive echo cancellation were integral to the development of technology whereas his work on network synchronization was crucial for deployment of digital networks.

A self professed workaholic, Mitra was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the foremost body of electrical engineers worldwide, in 1989. He was also the Fellow of the Bell Labs. He has 10 patents to his credit, with five more pending. Some of the patents that Mitra has worked on are for congestion control of high-speed data networks, traffic shaping and policing, traffic engineering, network resource sharing, design techniques for network, including VPN, and power control of multiservice CDMA wireless networks. Five of his technical papers have won best paper awards. He is the co-recipient of the 1998 IEEE Eric Summer award for the conception and development of echo cancellers, and also of Steven O Rice award, and Guiooemin-Cauer award. n