Rajan Mehta has held postdoctoral positions at IMPA (in Rio de Janeiro), Washington University in Saint Louis and Penn State.

Mehta's research deals with various connections between geometry and physics. On the one hand, geometry provides the language to describe physical theories, and the physics of the future will possibly require new "higher" or "generalized" geometries. On the other hand, many recent developments in geometry and topology have involved the use of ideas from string theory and quantum field theory. Mehta is interested in both directions of this relationship, with particular emphasis on the important role of symmetry in geometry and physics.