Dr Umakanta Mishra is a historian of early medieval India, with research spanning Buddhism in maritime Asia, the religious landscape of early medieval Odisha, maritime archaeology, Buddhist iconography, and epigraphy. He earned his M.Phil. (1997) and PhD (2005) in Ancient Indian History from the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, with doctoral work on Buddhism and maritime networks in early medieval coastal Orissa. A UGC Junior Research Fellow, he served as a permanent faculty member in the Department of History, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, from 2010 to 2020, and is currently an Associate Professor in the School of History, G.M. University, Sambalpur. His published work examines Brahmanical–Buddhist relations, inscribed images and copperplates, and dharanis from Odisha’s Buddhist sites.