Dr. Sukumar Laik who is presently Professor (HAG) of the Department of Petroleum Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, India is serving as faculty since 1977. He has graduated in Petroleum Engg. from Indian School of Mines in the year 1973 and subsequently obtained his M.Tech & Ph.D. degree in Petroleum Engg. from the same institution. As an extra qualification he passed AMIE Sec B (equivalent to B.Tech.) in Mechanical Engg. also.

Before joining Indian School of Mines, he worked for four years on designing and construction of plant piping and cross country pipeline in India, Singapore and Indonesia while working with DOSAL Pvt. Ltd. During 1981-83 he served as visiting faculty in Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Nigeria. His research areas include Flow of oil through pipeline, Stress analysis of pipeline, Offshore Drilling & Production, Hydraulic fracturing simulation and Enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Currently he is engaged in a new project on "Study of nucleation of Gas Hydrates" where an indigenously fabricated set up (first of its kind in India) has been made. He has published about 60 technical papers in referred journals and has guided many M.Tech. & Ph.D. scholars. He has authored/edited two books namely "Dictionary of Petrochemical Engineering" and "Recent Trends in Exploration, Exploitation and Processing of Petroleum Resources". Presently his major area of research is "Kinetics of Gas Hydrates". He is Member of Society of Petroleum Engineers (USA) and lifetime Fellow of the Institution of Engineers (India).

He has held several positions in the academic committees outside ISM like member of National Gas Hydrates Programme of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Rules framing committees of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas etc and also held administrative positions at IIT(ISM). He was Head of the department of Petroleum Engg from 2000 to 2008 and Dean (Students Welfare) from 2009 to 2012.