His current research is focused on bioprocessing for biofuels and bioproducts, catalysis for hydrogen, syngas and ammonia production, process engineering and scale-up, plastic waste valorization, synthesis of nanostructured materials, and energy storage. The bioprocessing research is mainly focused on pilot scale reactor system development for the production of biofuels and bioproducts. His lab is currently designing and synthesizing novel catalytic materials for solar hydrogen/syngas fuels and ammonia production. Advanced materials research is focused on improving energy and power density of energy storage devices. His research experience includes hydrothermal liquefaction/carbonization(HTL/HTC), design and development of reactor systems, thermally stabilized redox materials, wet oxidation kinetics, industrial wastewater treatment, supercritical fluid extraction, nanoenergetic materials, and on-chip processing and sensors.

Rajesh Shende is a Professor, and Interim Associate Department Head of Karen M. Swindler Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai, India and gained post-doctoral research experience at the National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia and the University of Missouri-Columbia. He worked in the chemical industry for 3 years as a process engineer and technical manager. His industrial experience includes manufacturing of dyes and pigments, process engineering and scale-up, and technology transfer. He received funding awards amounting $11.7 million (total award $26.8 million) from several funding agencies that include Department of Energy/EERE/BETO, NSF, NASA EPSCoR, US Air Force Civil Engineering Center, ARDEC, and other industries. He's advised 28 graduate students (MS and PhD), published more than 150 scientific papers, and made 165 various technical presentations. He is the recipient of several scholarly awards.

He teaches both undergraduate and graduate level courses of chemical engineering. He believes continuous learning improvement is highly desired to develop a thorough understanding of the subject matter, which can be achieved by active and/or collaborative learning strategies. Collaborative learning gives students with opportunities to engage in discussions, identify knowledge gaps and gain new knowledge, resulting in critical thinkers. To achieve student learning outcomes, he sometimes uses problem and project-based learning methods. He teaches transport phenomena (momentum, mass and heat), fluid mechanics, reaction engineering, reactor design, process/product design, chemical process safety, global and contemporary issues in chemical engineering, renewable and sustainable energy, and immuno-engineering. Additionally, he performs course assessment and contributes to the self-study documentation for ABET.