Dr. Rahul is a trained sociologist and an ethnographer. He finished his doctoral degree from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai in 2016. His thesis explored the dialectics of dual hierarchy and its metamorphosis since independence in rural Andhra Pradesh. Prior to joining IIT Palakkad, he was an Assistant Professor at the School of Development, Azim Premji University from 2021 and an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Policy, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru from 2016 to 2021.

His doctoral research was an ethnography of the changing nature of socio-economic hierarchy post-independence in rural Andhra Pradesh. His research explored the implications of the traditional hierarchy in private spaces and the interest group formations in the public and political spaces in rural society. His areas of research interest are neo-liberal economy and rural social change, sociology of political change, and caste based public policy articulations.