Dr. Shanthakumar is the Professor of Environmental Engineering and former Head of Department of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, School of Civil Engineering at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, India. He graduated from the Kumaraguru College of Technology, Bharathiyar University, Coimbatore, India in Civil Engineering Discipline and completed his Masters from the College of Engineering Guindy, Anna University, Chennai, India in Environmental Management Discipline. He completed his Doctoral Research in Geoenvironmental Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Mumbai, India. Prior to his Doctoral Research, he was a Lecturer of Civil Engineering at Bannari Amman Institute of Technology (BIT), Sathyamangalam, Tamil Nadu, India and carried out teaching and research in the field of environmental engineering and management. After obtaining the doctoral degree, he moved to Department of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore. His area of interest includes waste minimization, industrial waste treatment, characterization and utilization of industrial waste, environmental geotechnology and phycoremediation. He published more than 75 research papers in reputed international/national journals and presented several papers in conferences. He is a reviewer for several international and national journals. He received CEPL Fellowship by IIT Bombay in 2006 to pursue Doctoral research, Young Scientist Start-up (YSS) grant by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India in 2016, and the prestigious “Endeavour Awards” by Australian Government for post-doctoral research in 2018. He is also a member of the District Environmental Appraisal Committee (DEAC), Vellore District, Government of Tamil Nadu, India.