While preparing for a presentation, Srivi Ramasubramanian searched for the word “professor” on Google Images. Each result on the first page brought up images of men.
Ramasubramanian wasn’t surprised by the lack of diversity.
“If there are inequalities in what the media systems are picking up, then there are going to be inequalities in [the outcome] or what we get to see,” said Ramasubramanian, who holds the Newhouse Professorship, an endowed chair position at the Newhouse School.
Ramasubramanian realized she needed to address the algorithms that influenced digital media. She also sought to address media biases, and to incorporate data equity into her work. In 2021, Ramasubramanian founded CODE^SHIFT, which stands for “Collaboratory for Data Equity, Social Healing, Inclusive Futures, and Transformation.” It’s a multidisciplinary research lab space for communication and data justice, with a goal to address contemporary social issues, especially those relating to race, gender, ethnicity and indigeneity, using media and technology.
A leading communications scholar, Ramasubramanian is an expert in addressing social issues in media. She earned a Ph.D. in mass communication from Pennsylvania State University, a postgraduate degree in communication management from MICA in India and a bachelor’s degree in visual communication from Loyola College in the University of Madras.
Ramasubramanian is the first woman and person of color to hold the Newhouse Professorship. In May 2023, when she was named an International Communication Association Fellow—the first Newhouse faculty member to achieve this prestigious distinction, and the only woman of color in her 2023 cohort. In September 2024, she was honored with a National Communication Association (NCA) Distinguished Scholar Award, the highest honor bestowed by NCA.
Ramasubramanian brought CODE^SHIFT to Syracuse from Texas A&M University after she joined the Newhouse faculty in 2021. She decided to use the research lab as a place to connect undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students from all colleges and schools across the University, as “really big social issues can be addressed only when people from many different backgrounds come together,” she said.
The CODE^SHIFT team—broken up into three teams that focus on the specific areas of quantitative research, qualitative research, and creative and public outreach—meets in a bright, airy room on the fourth floor of Newhouse 3. They host weekly writing sessions, monthly workshops, writing retreats and an annual research symposium. They also collaborate on research grants, journal papers, books, presentations, a video series, quarterly newsletters and community projects.
Ramasubramanian “has a strong sensitivity to identifying students’ strengths and promoting those strengths at every opportunity she has,” said doctoral candidate and CODE^SHIFT team member Raiana de Carvalho. “I also love how open she is to people’s ideas and how she helps us further develop these ideas.”
Ramasubramanian and her students have worked with resettled refugee communities, which resulted in media literacy projects and a multimedia exhibition of photo poetry about the refugees’ lives. They’ve worked on an award-winning project about how Indigenous news media and tribal newspapers cover climate change and environmental issues.
Past projects also include examining the media literacy’s role in campus activism and a maternal mental health project with Upstate Medical Center.
The work “is a combination of data as numbers, but also data as storytelling,” Ramasubramanian said. “We think about connecting legacy media and communications with digital media. It’s recognizing that these are all interconnected as we move forward.”
That work starts on a solid foundation, provided by the Newhouse School.
“Dean Lodato has been very supportive and our staff has been so helpful for all of our projects,” Ramasubramanian said. “Everyone is open to all the ideas CODE^SHIFT has even if they’re nontraditional and innovative.”
In addition to faculty from the School of Information Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences, several Newhouse faculty members collaborate with Ramasubramanian on CODE^SHIFT, including Nausheen Husain, David Oh, Sean Branagan, Rebecca Ortiz and Kelly Leahy.
Ramasubramanian’s long-term goal is to extend CODE^SHIFT’s reach beyond campus.
“That’s our future vision: How to bring some of the best scholars and speakers and thinkers to Newhouse and then take some of the excellent work that we are doing here to bigger audience across the state and nation,” she said.
Even with these larger goals, the most important aspect of CODE^SHIFT remains the relationships formed between members and the people they work with in their collaborative projects, said Ramasubramanian. That strong sense of community reflects in de Carvalho’s experience.
“CODE^SHIFT focuses on the collective and on how we’re stronger when we work in collaborative rather than competitive ways,” she said. “I’ll take this experience to every place I go.”