He joined ASU in 1991 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1996, and Professor in 2000. Prior to joining ASU, he was a research associate with the Center for Design Research and the department of computer science at Stanford University.
Rao's research interests are in Artificial Intelligence with particular emphasis on planning, machine learning, analogical and case-based reasoning, and their applications to automated manufacturing. He has written oodles of papers in these areas (but of course!).
Rao is the recipient of a three-year NSF research initiation award in 1992 and a five-year NSF Young Investigator award in 1994.
In his spare time, Rao writes inflammatory articles on the usenet, and listens to Indian classical music.