I'm a Professor in the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad. My research interests include cultural studies of science, health communication, children's media, feminist media studies, and the social and cultural impact of digital media. In the Department, I teach courses on basic and advanced writing, digital media and cyberculture, and science and health communication. Before joining the University, I led the content team of corporate communications at Satyam Computers for a year (2000-2001), and for a decade after headed the communications department at L V Prasad Eye Institute, where I was responsible for internal and external communications. During this time I also had the opportunity to work in communications and advocacy for the International Agency for Blindness Prevention.
In 2020, I was elected to the Executive Board of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), and served as Vice President until July 2024.
I've written widely for the popular press on topics related to health, technology, women’s issues, education and digital culture, and my writing has appeared in The Indian Express, Caravan, Deccan Chronicle and the Times of India and www.thewire.in. I write a monthly column for The Hindu on podcasts--you can find some of the links here. I also edit a monthly magazine for school teachers, called Teacher Plus.
I received my doctorate in mass communication from the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA, in 1996. I've had the privilege of being a visiting fellow at the University of Sydney (Australia), as a Fulbright Fellow at MIT (USA) and at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information at the University of Bremen (Germany). Most recently, my work has focused on civic engagement and digital social networks, feminist media studies, and the notion of the datafied self. I also have a long-standing interest in biomedical ethics, in particular, the ethical frameworks applied in the physician-patient relationship.
Apart from several book chapters and journal articles on my core research areas, my publications include “Writing for the Media” (Oxford University Press, 2010), a volume of poetry entitled “All the spaces in between” (Writers Workshop, 2009), a children’s book “Under the Bed” (Spark India, 2004), and a novel, "Polite Conversations" (BEE Books, 2024). I'm an occasional blogger, and recently launched a collaborative podcast, Reading for our Times, which features short excerpts from selected books, usually organized around a theme.
Current and completed projects include the following:
Organizing Digitally: Opportunities for collectivisation among women workers in the Global South. IDRC funded project, 2020-22. Co-PI, with Payal Arora. https://femlab.co
Digital expressions of the self(ie): photographic performativity in contemporary India. SPARC Project, 2019-21. Co-PI, with Avishek Ray
STOP Epilepsy: Scaling up the competencies of primary care workers to manage epilepsy by task sharing. DBT-Wellcome Trust India Alliance funding, 2021-26. Co-PI, in collaboration with Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana; The George Institute for Global Health, and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.
Project Samatha: Gender Sensitive Teaching in Low-Resource Schools. Funded by the United States India Education Foundation-Alumni Engagement Fund. 2020-21. Co-PI, in collaboration with Kriti Social Initiatives and Maulana Azad National Urdu University.
You can follow me on the usual social media platforms:
Facebook: usha.raman
Bluesky: @usharaman.bsky.social
LinkedIn: usharaman
Instagram: usharaman