Vatsal received his B.Sc. degree in 1992 from Stanford University and a Ph.D. (thesis title: Iwasawa Theory, modular forms and Artin representations) in 1997 from Princeton University under the supervision of Andrew Wiles who had just completed his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.[1][2] He then became a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto.[1]
Vatsal's contributions include his work on the Iwasawa theory of elliptic curves, a field which he approached using novel ideas from ergodic theory.[1]
Vatsal has received numerous accolades. He was a Sloan Fellow in 2002–2004 and a recipient of the André Aisenstadt Prize (2004), the Ribenboim Prize (2006) and the Coxeter–James Prize (2007).[1] In 2008, he was an invited speaker at the 2008 International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid.[1]