Dr. Ehrlich Desa, the Director, National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) was born on the 16th of February 1947 in Calcutta. He completed his Indian School Certificate examination (Science Stream) from St,. Xavier's School, Calcutta. Having completed his graduation in Engineering (1969) from University of Sheffield,UK, he received the Ph.D degree (1972) in Microwaves, from the University of Sheffield , UK. He has done his specialisation in the field of Electronic Engineering.

Starting his work with the Ministry of Telecommunications (Tripoli,Libya) as a Resident Microwave Engineer (1973). He has been associated with the National Institute of Oceangraphy, Goa since 1973. He has worked at various levels before rising to the post of The Director. He was the Head of the Marine Instrumentation & Computer Division (MICD) from1979 to 1994. In the year 1994 he was nominated to the post of the Director of the Nation's premier organisation in the field of oceanography.

During his past 20 years tenure at the National Institute of Oceanography, he has been closely linked in the development of appropriate instrumentation systems and services. The various types of instruments developed in this context under the guidance of Dr. Desa constitute Tide Gauge, In-Water Optical Radiometer, Automatics Weather Station, Current meters, Data Buoys etc., in addition to Integrated Data Acquisition System, Electronic Bathythermograph, Ship-borne weather station and Current meters.

Two other major tasks that have taken shape under the guidance of Dr. Desa are the Institute's Computer Center and Data Center. The Computer Center, designed architecturally and logistically by him, is the result of his long term planning and short term implementation. The 3 crore centre will be shortly processing large volumes of seismic data for ONGC and will be operational for 24 hours. The Data Center enhancement was done under the able supervision of Dr. Desa. It mainly consisted of computational support, training of manpower under different schemes, implementation of quality control on the archive data and introduction of sophisticated large database programmes. Apart from this the Workshop, Drawing and Photographic facilities were set-up, expanded, modernised and enhanced as a part of Dr. Desa's earlier postings.

Dr. Desa also has a number of research publications to his credit , besides memberships of various prestigious committees and societies. He has also been a guide, advisor and supervisor for many a students pursuing higher studies in various branches of Science and technological subjects from time to time.