About Rajendran Raja
Rajendran Raja obtained his Ph.D. in physics from the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK and became a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1973. He emigrated from the UK to the United States in 1974 to join the staff at Fermilab. As a senior scientist at Fermilab for more than two decades, Raja contributed to more than 300 articles in professional scientific journals and led many research projects. He played a leading role in the design of the D0 detector at Fermilab and he assembled and led a talented team of physicists who formed the D0 Software Support Group, a team that was critical to the success of the D0 physics program. Raja headed the D0 Top Quark Analysis Group and is credited with developing highly influential algorithms that led to the top quark discovery. In the early 1990s, he initiated collaborations between Indian institutions and Fermilab, resulting in a highly successful cohort of Indian graduate students, who earned doctorates through their research on the D0 experiment.
Dr. Raja firmly believed in the importance of fundamental measurements, and later in his career he initiated and led an experimental team on the Main Injector Particle Production (MIPP) experiment to acquire high-statistics data on hadron interactions with complete particle identification, data of importance for untangling the mysteries of neutrino interactions.
Dr. Raja was interested in solving the world's energy crisis and was a proponent of accelerator-induced thorium reactors, a much-needed energy solution for his motherland India. He was heavily involved in giving back to the Indo-American community and served on the board of directors of the Indo-American Center in Chicago.
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