Dr Sat Pal Sharma joined PAU in 2003 as Assistant Professor of Vegetable Science at PAU Regional Station, Gurdaspur. He did his Ph.D. at the Texas A&M University, USA in muskmelon improvement. As a Principal Vegetable Breeder, he has been leading potato and muskmelon breeding programmes at PAU. He has established the in-house potato breeding program at PAU, utilizing the off-season cold weather and long-day conditions available at Keylong, HP for flower induction and hybridization. In 2023, as a landmark achievement in the history of vegetable breeding at PAU, he has recommended first two potato varieties of PAU, Punjab Potato-101 and Punjab Potato-102 for cultivation in the state. He has also recommended three muskmelon cultivars including Punjab Sarda and Punjab Amrit. He has many production technologies in different vegetable crops to his credit. He has participated as principal/ co-principal investigator in seven ad-hoc research projects funded by the national government agencies and agro-industries.

Dr. Sharma has authored 66 research papers, four review papers, four proceeding paper, 12 book chapters, presented 75 papers in international and national conferences. He has extensive teaching experience, encompassing five undergraduate courses taught over 11 semesters and five postgraduate courses taught for 14 semesters. He has mentored ten M.Sc. and three Ph.D. students as major advisor. For the last four years he has been leading the extension activities of the Department of Vegetable Science and has published 58 extension articles, delivered 28 radio talks and 130 lectures. He has received several honours/ awards including, Smt. Harpal Kaur Memorial Award (2023), the appreciation award by PAU as best scientist (2023), AICRP (VC) Best Centre team award, and fellow of the Indian Society of Vegetable Science (2023). He was also awarded the merit fellowship during his M.Sc. and the dissertation fellowship at Texas A&M University for his Ph.D. research. He has received 16 best paper awards, including the Warren S. Braham best paper award by the American Society of Horticultural Sciences, USA.