Professor Bhattacharjee received his Ph.D. at Princeton University (1981) in theoretical plasma physics from the Department of Astrophysical Sciences. He and his students and postdoctoral colleagues have authored over 200 publications with broad applications to laboratory, space and astrophysical plasmas. In 2003 he accepted the Paul Professorship in the Space Science Center of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space and Department of Physics, University of New Hampshire.

At the University of Iowa, he has received the James Van Allen Natural Sciences Fellowship (1996) and the Faculty Scholar (1997-2000) award. He has served as Associate Editor of the Geophysical Research Letters and the Physics of Plasmas, as Chair of the Topical Group in Plasma Astrophysics of the American Physical Society, and on various prize and fellowship committees. He is presently Vice-Chair of the Division of Plasma Physics of the American Physical Society and Senior Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research – Space Physics. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1993, and a Fellow of the American Association of Advancement of Science in 2000. Professor Bhattacharjee's research interests include: magnetohydrodynamics, magnetic reconnection, turbulence and singularity formation, kinetic theory, free-electron lasers, and dusty plasmas.