A licensed professional engineer, Chandra specializes in irrigation and water management engineering, climate change and greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture, and agricultural research for development. Chandra has been involved in water, agricultural and environmental projects in Canada, the Caribbean, Central Asia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Sub Saharan Africa, Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka. He served as President of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID), Chair of the Board of Trustees of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (CRISAT), and Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC).

Chandra is a professor of bioresource engineering at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He has undergraduate and graduate degrees in irrigation, and water management engineering from McGill University. He was Dean of McGill’s Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences from 2005-2015. He also holds visiting appointments in civil and environmental engineering, and in water and food security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  He has supervised over 100 graduate students, published over 225 papers, and invited to deliver over 100 talks and seminars to various scientific and professional bodies.