Dr. Pillai graduated cum laude from Yale University and received his M.D. degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. After internal medicine internship at North Shore U. Hospital - Cornell/Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center program, he completed radiology residency at Newark Beth Israel Med. Ctr. (affil. of Mount Sinai School of Medicine), where he was Chief Resident. He joined the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) faculty in 1999 after two year fellowship in neuroradiology at Case Western Reserve U./Univ. Hospital of Cleveland. At MCG, he was Associate Professor of Radiology, Director of Neuro-Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and President of the School of Medicine Faculty Senate in 2006. He joined Johns Hopkins as Visiting Associate Professor in 2007 and is currently Associate Professor of Radiology and Radiological Science and Director of Functional MRI at Johns Hopkins. 

Dr. Pillai has been on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Neuroradiology since 2007 and is also on the editorial boards of Public Library of Science-One (PLoS-ONE) and the World Journal of Clinical Oncology. He currently receives grant funding from the NIH as co-PI to study brain lesion-induced neurovascular uncoupling and has previously received funding as PI on grants funded by Siemens, RSNA (Radiological Society of North America) and the Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute; he has also served as co-investigator on other NIH-funded projects. His field of research and clinical interest includes functional imaging, particularly of brain tumors. He completed a term (2008-2009) as President of the American Society of Functional Neuroradiology (ASFNR) and has served for six years on the Scientific Program Committee of the RSNA in the past. He has most recently served a 3-year term on the Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC) of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM). He has published two books (Functional Brain Tumor Imaging [Springer] & a Neuroimaging Clinics of North America issue entitled, “Clinical Applications of Functional MRI”[Elsevier]) in 2014.