Sourav Paul is an estuarine ecologist and a co-founder of Estuarine and Coastal Studies Foundation (ECSF), India. He visions for a sustainable development of estuarine and coastal issues which shall touch even the marginalized of the society. He is instrumental on developing cyclone research program for Indian estuaries and his efforts are fittingly recognized by IOC-UNESCO in the UN Ocean Decade (2021-2030).

He holds and held several awards, fellowships and extramural grants of India, New Zealand, South Africa and Uruguay during his career for research on estuarine studies taking a multi-disciplinary approach. He earned his doctorate from the University of Otago, New Zealand based on his expertise in ecological-physiology of estuarine crustaceans and went on to carry out his postdoctoral works on plankton ecology, quantitative ecology and ecological-physiology in the estuaries of South Africa and Uruguay.