Ramesh Srinivasan
Ramesh Srinivasan | |
|---|---|
Srinivasan at the 2023 Web Summit in Lisbon. | |
| Born | 1976 (age 49–50) |
| Occupations | Engineer, social scientist, academic, author, speaker |
| Title | Professor and Director, University of California Los Angeles |
| Board member of | Awana Digital |
| Academic background | |
| Education | B.S., Industrial Engineering (1998)
M.S., Media Arts and Sciences (2002) Ph.D., Design and Technology Studies (2005) |
| Alma mater | Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University |
| Thesis | Weaving Spatial, Digital and Ethnographic Processes in Community-Driven Media Design (2005) |
| Doctoral advisor | Jeffrey Huang, Hashim Sarkis |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Technology and Society Studies |
| Sub-discipline | Digital Media, Cultural Studies, Global Politics, and Technological Ethics |
| Institutions | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), The Digital Cultures Lab |
| Main interests | AI, ethics, visual and environmental design |
| Website | rameshsrinivasan |
Ramesh Srinivasan (born 1976) is an American engineer, social scientist, academic, author, and host of the Utopias podcast. He is Professor of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, with a joint appointment in Design/Media Arts. Srinivasan is the founder and Director of the Digital Cultures Lab at UCLA since 2015 and serves as Assistant Director of UCLA's DataX initiative.
Srinivasan's work focuses on how technologies are impacting political, social, psychological, economic, and ecological realities around the planet. His work discusses the potential of technology to support all people and environmental issues, rather than play into a zero sum game that creates isolation, division, and disconnection. Srinivasan previously served as a national surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, and as an Innovation policy committee member for former President Biden. As of 2025, he also continues to informally advise Rep. Ro Khanna, who has cited his work in his latest book. Srinivasan has been working with multiple state legislators on AI rights, regulations, including within the state of California.
He has written three books. His most recent book Beyond the Valley: How Innovators around the World are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow (2019), was listed among Forbes' top technology books of 2019, and his work has been referenced by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman regarding digital rights.
Srinivasan is a member of the board of directors at Awana Digital, a nonprofit that works and collaborates with land protectors in the Amazon. He is an adviser to New_Public, One Project, and the Huntington Library.