Professor Arun Kumar works for Hydropower and Pumped Storage Development, Environmental Management of Water Bodies, Energy Economics and Policy Hydropower at IIT Roorkee. He is a NEEPCO Chair Professor, a board member of IHA, VP of Federation of Indian SHP and recently nominated as Chairman Technical Committee on Hydro Research, Ministry of Power. He served as coordinating lead author for Hydropower by IPCC for the SRREN. He has been a founding scientist of HRED including leading from 1998 to 2011. Professor Kumar has received various awards and recognitions from CBIP, Institution of Engineers and HP Association and IIT Roorkee Research Award HRED Hydro and Renewable Energy Award 2021. He held MNRE Chair Professor from 2013–2018.

He served on the Board of NHPC Ltd, Govt. of India PSU for hydropower from 2015 to 2019 as independent director. He holds Bachelor and Master's in civil engineering and a PhD in hydropower diploma studies from NTH, Trondheim. He is a fellow of ASCE, International Hydropower Association, Institute of Engineers (India), IWRS and IWWA. He established the international hydraulic turbine laboratory, real time simulator, sediment monitoring and field-testing laboratories and advises the Indian hydropower industry regularly.

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