Prof. Dianabandhu Mishra was born on 1st December, 1935 in village of Sri Mukundapur, Khrudha district of Odisha. Educated at Puri Zilla School in 1950, graduated and post-graduated in Botany at Ravenshaw College securing 1st positions in both. Started his service career at Ravenshaw College in January, 1957 qualifying Orissa Education Service (OES). Awarded Ph. D. degree in the University of Manitoba (Canada) availing Common Wealth Fellowship in 1963. Joined as Associate Professor in Botany in Orissa University of Agriculture &Technology in 1964 till 1969. In 1969, he joined as Reader in Botany in the Post-Graduate Department of Botany, Utkal University as one of the three founder professors and continued till 1975. He has excelled in the field of plant science research with special reference to leaf senescence by publishing in high impact journals like Nature, Science, Plant Physiology, Canadian Journal of Botany, Botanical Review etc. He published around 100 research papers in international journals of wide citations and 18 students have been awarded Ph.D. degree under his guidance in field of Plant Physiology, Biochemistry and Agriculture. He has also contributed many popular scientific articles and text books which are very popular among the college and university students.
He has availed many prestigious fellowships for research and higher studies which includes some of them like JSPS (Japan), Weizamann Institute Fellowship in Science (Israel), Post-Doctoral Fellowship of National Research Council (Canada) and Indo-Soviet Exchange Programme of UGC. As an academic administrator he completed his tenures as Professor & Head of the Department of Botany at Ravenshaw College, Principal, Ravenshaw College, Director of both Higher and Secondary Education (Govt. of Orissa), Special Secretary to Higher Education Department (Govt. of Orissa), member of the syndicate Utkal university and Vice-Chancellor of Sri Jaganath Sanskrit University. The old students of this department admire him and have high regards for his articulate, humour and wittiness speeches.