Deepak is Professor and the Head of the Department of Anthropology, Sambalpur University, India. He obtained his Master’s degree (Gold Medalist) and Ph.D. from Sambalpur University, where he has been teaching anthropology since 1985. He has more than 70 research publications in reputed journals and edited volumes. Most of his publications are in the fields of children and childhood and tribal studies including: Contemporary Society: Childhood and Complex Order (Manak Publication, New Delhi, 1996), Children and Childhood in Contemporary Societies (Kamla-Raj Enterprise, New Delhi, 1998), Public Images of Children (Guest Editor, Special Issue of Journal of Social Sciences, New Delhi, 1999) and Children and Youth in the Metropolitan Cultures (Guest Editor, Special Issue of the International Journal of Anthropology, Florence, June 2001), Childhoods in South Asia (Longman/Pearson, New Delhi, 2007). He is currently editing a book jointly with Roxana Waterson on Asia Pacific Childhoods to be published by Longman/Pearson in 2007.

Deepak’s research and publications record is related to his worldwide reputation as a distinguished scholar of childhood studies. He was a visiting Professor in the Dept. of Anthropology, University of Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa (2001, 2003), Dept. of Anthropology, University of Durban-Westville, Durban (2001), South Africa and Institute of Psychology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2004), Maison des Sciences de L’Homme, Paris, CNRS-EHESS, Toulouse (2006). He has been selected as a Fulbright Visiting Fellow to teach a course on ‘New Approaches to Childhood in Changing Contexts’ at California University at Long Beach. He is a member of the Executive Board of International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) for the period 1998-2008, and the Chairperson of the IUAES Commission on Children, Youth and Childhood. He was also the Officer-at-Large of the International Sociological Association Research Committee-53 - Sociology of Childhood for the session 1998-2003. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Journal - Sociological Analysis (USA), Boyhood Studies (USA) and Practicing Anthropology (USA). Professor Behera is also a member of Advisory Board of the Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children's Issues Worldwide (Greenwood Publishing House, USA).