“I feel that contributing to the whole world is what is most important to me,” says Rajeev Yadav, PhD 12. | Photo: Maxime Joanis
Rajeev Yadav, PhD 12, has dedicated his life to a vision of a better world.
He received the 2014 Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Samman award — a prestigious honour for outstanding members of the Indian diaspora.
Presented at London’s House of Lords, the award is bestowed by the Non-Resident Indians (NRI) Welfare Society of India, which aims to strengthen emotional bonds between diaspora members and their home country.
“I feel that contributing to the whole world is what is most important to me,” says Yadav, a research scientist at Genia Photonics.
Born in a small town in Uttar Pradesh, India, to a military family, he had the opportunity to travel across the country.
“I was fortunate to have experiences in all the different parts of the country. It gave me a different perspective,” he says.
Yadav completed a bachelor and master of science at India’s Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University, followed by a short association with the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, before enrolling at Concordia to pursue a PhD in electrical engineering.
“Concordia gave me my dreams — the opportunity to work in biomedical engineering,” Yadav recalls. “I learned how to do research. It changed my outlook; I grew up.”
At Concordia, Yadav led a research team that developed algorithms to identify epileptic signatures from electroencephalograms, recordings to monitor electrical activity of the brain. He actively contributed with different research groups on varied biomedical research projects within Concordia and in academia in Canada, the U.S. and India.
His research interests span medical devices, biomedical signal processing, pattern recognition, critical care research, rehabilitation engineering and neuroimaging.
In addition to his influential work in the labs, Yadav has been a heavy-handed social actor and environmental activist.
“It is our responsibility to save the earth and the simplest way we can is by adopting natural and organic food,” he says. “This will make the earth greener and enrich biodiversity.”
In India, Yadav works to improve access to education for poor children — especially girls — and contributes to increasing biomedical research in rural areas.
“I do things like help hospitals, provide remote diagnosis and help biomedical students get trained in a big city in order to institute changes,” Yadav explains.
He also works for organizations such as UNICEF and the World Wildlife Fund.
“Right now I am working on building a photonics-based imaging system that will aid in molecular imaging of live cells,” Yadav says.
The imaging system finds applications in neuroscience research, neurosurgery and in industry — for explosives detection, pharmaceuticals and in food processing diagnostics.
Yadav was listed four times in the Marquis Who’s Who in the World and has received two fellowships from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Yadav’s philosophy? “Work honestly. Don’t think about what you are getting. Ask what you can contribute to society and good things always come back to you.”
- Learn more about Rajeev Yadav’s research for Genia Photonics.