Dr. Rana obtained his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK), India, in 2012 under the supervision of Prof. Vinod K. Singh. Then, he moved to the research group of Prof. John C.-G. Zhao at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), USA. After two years post-doctoral research at UTSA, he returned to India, and worked as a senior research scientist in the Department of Chemistry, IITK for one year. Then, in 2015, he moved to the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal as an INSPIRE Faculty Fellow. In November 2017, he joined as a faculty in the Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, India. He is currently serving as an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry, IIT Jodhpur.

He is recipient of many prestigious awards and recognitions, such as, First Prize of Eli Lilly Thesis Awards in 2012, DST-INSPIRE Faculty Award in 2015. He has recently been awarded with Chirantan Rasayan Sanstha (CRS) Young Scientist Medal in 2024. He was a Review Editor of the Editorial Board of Catalytic Reactions and Chemistry from 2021 to 2024.

His research interest includes to design and synthesize new organocatalysts and apply them to develop novel asymmetric methodologies, mainly emphasizing domino/cascade/sequential reactions to create multiple stereocenters within a molecule. Additional targets are the exploration of dual organo-metal catalysis and bio-catalysis. His research group has been actively working on the development of novel methodologies using continuous-flow systems with immobilized catalysts for producing fine chemicals and chiral drug molecules/intermediates with industrial implementation. The developed protocols are utilized as key steps for the synthesis of architecturally interesting and biologically active molecules.