Gokulnath Sabapathi received his B.Sc (2000) in Chemistry from Sacred Heart College (Autonomous), Tirupattur and M.Sc (2002) in Inorganic Chemistry from University of Madras. His doctoral work was aimed at exploring core-modified expanded porphyrinoids with altered structural and electronic properties under the direction of Prof. Tavarekere K. Chandrashekar at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, where he received his Ph.D. degree in January, 2009.

He further pursued a postdoctoral stint in the laboratory of Prof. Hiroyuki Furuta at Kyushu University, Japan in March, 2009, in exploring the unique properties of N-Confused Porphyrinoid systems. In 2012, he moved to National University of Singapore to join the research group of Prof. Chi Chunyan to work in the area of p-conjugated systems targeting n-type semiconductor materials based on acenes and heteroacenes. In 2013, he joined Inorganic and Physical Chemistry at Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT, Hyderabad, India as a DST-Inspire Faculty and worked until August, 2015.

By the end of August, 2015, he joined IISER Thiruvananthapuram as Assistant Professor at the School of Chemistry and became Associate professor in Jan-2023. His research area covers synthesis of planar p-conjugated macrocycles for near-IR applications, molecular probes for toxic elements, exploring new DSSCs and heteroditopic receptors.