Rajeev obtained his PhD in Physics from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai and after a postdoctoral stint at the National Research Council, Canada, he joined the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) near Oxford, in the UK  in 2007. 

Rajeev is currently the Head of Novel Accelerator Science and Applications at RAL and leads Gemini, one of the most powerful laser facilities in the world. He is also the Deputy Technical Director of the £82M Extreme Photonics Applications Centre at RAL and the Head of the joint UK-India Innovation Centre (EPIC) at TIFR, Hyderabad. 

Rajeev’s main research interests are in the area of intense light-matter interactions and plasma physics, where he has co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications. He is an associate member of the John Adams Institute, University of Oxford and an Adjunct Professor of Physics at TIFR and the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Rajeev was a recipient of the Indian National Science Academy’s Young Scientist Award in 2009.