Amitabha Ghosh was born on 3rd December, 1941 at village Barhra of Birbhum district, West Bengal.

After completing his schooling at Barhra High School he did ISc from Suri Vidyasagar College (under Calcutta University) in 1958. He received his Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur, (Calcutta University) in 1962 and 1964, respectively. He joined the Mechanical Engineering Department of this college as a Lecturer in 1965 May and continued his doctoral research finally receiving the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Calcutta University in 1969. He joined IIT Kanpur in January 1971 as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and became Professor in 1975 June. From 1977 to 1978 he spent at the Technical University Aachen with Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship. From 1997 to 2002 he served IIT Kharagpur as the Director and subsequently returned to Kanpur where he continued teaching as a Professor till his retirement in 2006. Afterwards he was a Senior Scientist of the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi and Honorary Distinguished Professor at IIT Kanpur and Bengal Engineering & Science University, Shibpur till 2011. Currently Prof. Ghosh is a Platinum Jubilee Senior Scientist of the National Academy of Sciences, India and an Honorary Distinguished Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Bengal Engineering & Science University, Shibpur.

Prof. Ghosh received the Calcutta University Gold Medal for standing First Class First in both the Bachelors’ and Masters’ examinations. He also received the Calcutta University A H Pandya endowment Gold Medal for standing first among the students of all the branches of engineering. He was the first to receive Distinguished Teacher Award of IIT Kanpur. He also received the National Design and Research Award by the Institution of Engineers (India), Engineering Personality Award by the Institution of Engineers (India), and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Manufacturing Design & Technology Research Conference, 2006. He has been conferred with Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers (India), Indian National Academy of Engineering, New Delhi, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi and the National Academy of Sciences, India, Allahabad. He was also made an Honorary Life Fellow of the Association of Mechanisms and Machines.