Ramasubramanian is widely recognized for her pioneering work on race and media, media literacy initiatives, implicit bias reduction and scholar-activism. Her areas of expertise include critical media effects, data justice, digital cultures, intersectionality, applied communication and mixed methods. She is the editor-in-chief of Communication Monographs, the flagship journal of the discipline, and is the first woman of color to hold the position.

Ramasubramanian came to Syracuse from Texas A&M University, where she was a Presidential Impact Fellow and professor of communication, and served as associate dean of liberal arts. She is the founding director of the Difficult Dialogues Project and CODE^SHIFT (Collaboratory for Data Equity, Social Healing, Inclusive Futures, and Transformation), which brings together data scientists with social justice scholars. She is also the co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Media Rise.

She has over 100 publications to her credit, including in top tier journals, books, encyclopedias and major media outlets. Her latest book, “Quantitative Research Methods in Communication: Power of Numbers for Social Justice” (with Erica Scharrer), connects social science research with social justice scholarship. She is the recipient of the International Communication Association’s Applied Public Policy Research Award, National Communication Association’s Gerald M. Phillips Award for Distinguished Applied Communication Scholarship and the National Association for Media Literacy Education’s Outstanding Media Literacy Researcher Award.

At Texas A&M, Ramasubramanian co-founded the FIG First-Gen Freshmen Mentoring Program and started the Communicating Diversity Student Conference. Her commitment to teaching excellence has been recognized with the Association of Former Students College-Level Distinguished Teaching Award, Center for Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellowship, Service-Learning Faculty Fellowship and several Graduate Faculty Mentoring Awards.