About Raj
From a small farming village to the 14th Worcester District
Dr. Barur “Raj” Rajeshkumar is a scientist, long-serving elected official, and community leader running to represent the 14th Worcester District, which serves West Boylston and Worcester’s Wards 1, 2, and 3, in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
Raj was born and raised in a small rural farming village in Tamil Nadu, India, a place with only a few hundred residents, one modest school, and parents who worked long, hard days in the fields. Growing up in that environment taught him discipline, respect for community, and the value of every opportunity. Those small town values are the same values that drive his public service today.
Born in a small, rural farming village in Tamil Nadu, India, Raj learned about discipline, respect for community, and the value of creating and taking every opportunity possible from his parents, farmers who worked long, hard days in the field. With their support and grit, he was the first in his village and family to attend university where is earned his Ph.D in Biochemistry. This brought him to the U.S. in 1989.
Raj completed post-doctoral research at Harvard Medical School’s Joslin Diabetes Center and at Boston University School of Medicine. For over 30 years, he has worked as a Senior Research Scientist and Laboratory Manager at UMass Chan Medical School, focusing on juvenile diabetes, prostate cancer, and cardiac electrophysiology. He brings the same discipline, data-driven thinking, and honesty he uses in the lab to every decision he makes in government.
After 15 years in Worcester, Raj and his wife, Sutha, moved to West Boylston in 2015 with their two children. Since then, they have called West Boylston Home. In 2016, he was elected to the West Boylston Select Board and has been re-elected four times. He has helped deliver a new Senior Center, a modernized Police Station, the rebuilding of Pride Park and Mixter Field, and major road and drainage improvements. He has also served on the Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, Transportation Committee, Earth Removal Board, Town Scholarship Committee, and regional planning bodies.
What residents know best about Raj is simple: when people reach out, he responds. He doesn’t dodge hard issues, and he doesn’t disappear when things get difficult. He listens, he does the work, and he follows through.