Rajendra Vasant Gurjar earned his BSc and MSc degrees from Poona University, after which he went to the US for doctoral work. After getting PhD degree (1979) in Algebraic Geometry from the University of Chicago, he joined the School of Mathematics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, and has been with TIFR till today. Gurjar has done post-doctoral work at Osaka University; Duke University, USA; McGill University, Canada and Max Planck Institute, Bonn, Germany. He retired from the School of Math. of TIFR as Senior Professor in October 2015.

Academic and Research Achievements: Gurjar has taught courses on Algebraic Topology, Algebra, and Complex Manifolds at TIFR. Gurjar has worked mainly in the areas of Affine Algebraic Geometry and Commutative Algebra. He has used the Mumford-Ramanujam topological method and the theory of non-complete surfaces developed by Japanese mathematicians to prove many significant results like: topological characterization of quotients of affine-space modulo a finite group; construction of infinitely many non-isomorphic smooth contractible algebraic surfaces; a proof of a conjecture of Van de Ven (and its strengthening by M Miyanishi) on rationality of smooth algebraic surfaces with trivial singular homology; finiteness of the fundamental group of smooth points of a log del Pezzo surface; characterization of 2-dimensional quotients of an affine-space modulo a reductive algebraic group, etc. Gurjar has been a guide of five PhD students.

Other Contributions: Gurjar was a Trustee and Research Director (Hon) of the Bhaskaracharya Pratishthana, Pune, which is an institute for mathematical research.

Awards and Honours: Gurjar is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad.