He received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Statistics from Indian Statistics Institute, Kolkata India. He received his Phd in Statistics in 2006 from Purdue University under the supervision of Professor Jayanta K Ghosh, for which he was awarded The Savage Dissertation Award (Theory & Methods). Prior to joining Duke University, Surya has been a Morris H DeGroot Visiting Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. His research interest spans Nonparametric Bayesian theory and methods, with special emphasis to novel application and computation.