Sunil Kumar, Director, National Water Academy is a 1997 batch CWES Officer. He pursued his Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engg) from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra and M.S. in Euro Hydroinformatics and Water Management from Euro-Aqaue which is a consortium of 5 European University. He was one of 28 globally selected students for pursuing his master course by European Commission for Erasmus Mundus Scholarship. He has also done Post Graduate Certificate in Project Management (PGCPM) from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU).

He streamlined the process of techno-economic appraisal, technical consultancy from plant planning angle and construction equipment methodology & equipment planning of water resources project as Assistant/Deputy Director in Construction Machinery Consultancy Directorate of CWC. He contributed in evolving norms, capacity building and training in these areas.

While working as Deputy Director, R&D Division, MoWR, he contributed in several research endeavors such as compilation of R&D Guidelines, Report on Research in Water Sector through Public Private Participation (PPP), Memorandum for Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) For Plan Scheme, assistance to Group of Ministers (GOM) for Evolving an Integrated Strategy for Water Management, Indian National Committees and closely involved in Post Project Performance Evaluation Studies, Water Use Efficiency Studies, Evaluation of R&D work done by organisations of MoWR etc. Further as first Director, he made all activities functional of newly constituted secretariat of 'Indian National Committee on Surface Water (INCSW)' which is also national committee of International Commission on Irrigation & Drainage (ICID).

He has good international exposure and he worked on international projects such as Flood Analysis of Var Catchment, Nice, France (Hydro-Europe), Urban Flood Forecasting Pilot Study for Abindgon, UK, Web Collaborative Studies on Modeling of River Vid-, Denmark (Hydro-Web) and actively participated in several international Seminar/Conference.

His areas of interest include Construction Equipment Methodology of Water Resources Project, Research in Water Sector, Emerging Concepts of Water Management, Hydroinformatics tools such asArcGIS, Mike-11, Mike-She, Mike-21, Mike-Mouse, HEC-RAS, HEC-HMS,Infoworks CS/RS/2D, Neuroshell, EPANET, Water CAD etc.