BIOGRAPHY - Dr. Srividya Ramasubramanian
Dr. Srividya "Srivi" Ramasubramanian (she/her) is Newhouse Professor & Endowed Chair at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Her scholarship addresses pressing contemporary global issues relating to media, diversity, and social justice. She came to Syracuse in 2021 from Texas A&M University, where she was the first woman of color to earn tenure in her department and served as Presidential Impact Fellow and Associate Dean for Liberal Arts. She is the Founding Director of the Difficult Dialogues Project, CODE^SHIFT (Collaboratory for Data Equity, Social Healing, Inclusive Futures, and Transformation), and Media Rise (a global nonprofit for meaningful media). She did her post-doctoral fellowship at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and has been a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and the National University of Singapore.
Ramasubramanian is widely recognized for her pioneering work on race and media, media literacy, critical media effects, bias reduction, and scholar-activism. Srivi has over 125 presentations, 100 invited talks and workshops, and 100 publications to her credit, including in top-tier journals, books, encyclopedias, and popular media outlets. Her latest book, “Quantitative Research Methods in Communication: Power of Numbers for Social Justice” with Dr. Erica Scharrer connects social science research with social justice scholarship. She is the editor-in-chief of Communication Monographs, a flagship journal of her discipline, and is the first person of color to hold this position. She sits on more than a dozen editorial boards and has served as Associate Editor for the Psychology of Popular Media and the Journal of Applied Communication Research.
A TEDx speaker, she has given invited talks around the world and has been featured on National Public Radio, Huffington Post, Dallas Morning News, and India Today. Srivi was honored with the prestigious Presidential Impact Fellowship, for "rising to meet the challenges of their field and demonstrating impact towards creating a better world." She is also the recipient of the ICA Applied/Public Policy Research Award, NCA Gerald M. Phillips Distinguished Award for Applied Communication, and NAMLE Outstanding Media Literacy Researcher Award.
A fearless advocate for minoritized students, Srivi co-founded the FIG First-Gen Freshmen Mentoring Program and started the Communicating Diversity Student Conference at Texas A&M. Her commitment to teaching excellence has been recognized with the AFS College-Level Distinguished Teaching Award, Center for Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellowship, Service-Learning Faculty Fellowship, and several Graduate Faculty Mentoring Awards. Through Media Rise, her nonprofit collective for meaningful media, she has also hosted more than 60 community-based workshops, media festivals, and media literacy programs for educators, artists, activists, and policymakers. She has conducted more than 50 antiracism workshops for various organizations through her award-winning Difficult Dialogues Project, which uses facilitated small group discussions to build empathy, active listening, and shared responsibility for inclusive communities. Her demonstrated diversity leadership and community engagement have been recognized with the Chancellor's Medal for DEI, the Liberal Arts Achievements in Climate & Inclusion Award, NCA Mass Communication Service Award, TAMU ACE Award for Women’s Progress, and the TAMU Outstanding Diversity Team Award.
Ramasubramanian earned a Ph.D. in Mass Communication in 2004 from Penn State University, her postgraduate degree in Communication Management from MICA in India in 1998, and a B.Sc. (gold medalist) in Visual Communication in 1996 from Loyola College in the University of Madras. She is also a certified yoga teacher, Carnatic musician, and feminist poet.