Saravanan was born in Kilakarai, Ramanathapuram (District), Tamil Nadu, India. He received his M.Sc. in Chemistry from Madurai Kamaraj University (2008). Then he pursued his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Anju Chadha in Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India (2014). Soon after his Ph.D., he moved to the research group of Prof. Wolf D. Fessner at Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany for post-doctoral research (2014 – 2016). Subsequently, he did post-doctoral research with Prof. Gerrit J. Poelarends at the University of Groningen, Netherlands (2016 – 2019).

In January 2020, he joined the School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad as an Assistant Professor. He has been serving as an Associate Professor since January 2026.