Rajat was born in West Bengal, India and obtained his B.S and M.S. degrees from the University of Calcutta and IIT-Kharagpur respectively. During this time, he worked on the synthesis of modified carbohydrates under the tutelage of Prof. Tanmaya Pathak and also carried out project research in the National University of Singapore on MOF under the supervision of Prof. J.J Vittal. Subsequently, he spent one year as a CSIR Junior Research Fellow working with Prof. Saumen Hajra on asymmetric organocatalysis. Rajat obtained his Ph.D. in 2018 from Texas A&M University, under the supervision of Prof. Steven E Wheeler (currently at University of Georgia), where he honed his knowledge of organic structure and reactivity through the lens of state-of-the-art computations. After taking almost a year off (career break) to address a family emergency, Rajat resumed his training undertaking a postdoctoral position in the group of Prof. Benjamin List ( Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 2021 ) at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Germany. At MPI as a Marie Curie fellow (total duration 3 years), Rajat developed novel sustainable organocatalytic methods for olefin functionalization. In Aug 2022, Rajat joined as a postdoctoral scholar in the group of Prof. Abigail Doyle at UCLA to work on designing radical polar crossover reactions aided by Data Science and High Throughput Experimentation. 

Besides research, Rajat enjoys travelling, nature photography and watching stand-up comedy. Rajat is an avid coffee addict, although sometimes to pay homage to the great German tradition, he drinks beer too!