Akhil Rajan

About Akhil Rajan

Akhil Rajan was born in Chicago to parents of Indian heritage. His childhood took him to a number of hometowns across the country, including back to India for a few years.

Akhil is currently a JD/PhD candidate at Yale Law School. He holds a bachelor's degree and master’s degree in political science from Yale, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and a master’s of science degree with distinction in comparative social policy from Oxford, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar. At Yale, he was awarded the John Addison Porter Prize and the Frank Minor Patterson Prize for his senior essay examining the consequences of redistricting on substantive and descriptive representation. He was also co-president of the Undergraduate Legal Aid Association, on the executive committee of the Center for Social Justice and Public Service, and worked as a fellow for former Secretary of State John Kerry.

Akhil’s career has focused on policy initiatives that diminish spatial inequality and advance economic mobility for all Americans. Most recently, he was the director of implementation policy in the Biden-Harris White House Chief of Staff’s office, where he helped execute on the President’s multi-trillion Investing in America agenda and respond to crises like the collapse of the Baltimore Bridge and outbreak of H5N1 Avian Flu. Before that, he worked as a policy advisor on the White House Infrastructure Implementation Team, at the Department of Agriculture, and on campaigns at the state, local, and presidential level.

Akhil enjoys hiking, architecture, pasta-making, and polishing up his extremely confusing script for a romcom-psychothriller.