Reja Amatya received her BS degree in engineering science from Smith College, Northampton, MA in 2005, and her MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA in 2008 and 2012, respectively.

She is currently a Research Scientist at the MIT Energy Initiative, Cambridge, MA, and leading two separate energy projects within the Tata Center that focus on rural electrification in India. She is also involved in the Universal Access projects focusing on African nations: Kenya and Rwanda.