Her research considers the development of optical techniques for clinical diagnosis and surgical guidance, particularly using Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy.

[3][4] She moved to the University of Texas at Austin for her doctoral studies, where she completed a Master's and PhD in 1996.

[12] She created optical blood testing methodologies for neonatal babies, which was selected by the Vanderbilt University Center for Technology Transfer as one of the "coolest inventions" of the year.

[14] In 2005, Dr. Mahadevan-Jansen and collaborators (including her husband, Dr. E Duco Jansen[15]) discovered the ability to control peripheral and central nervous system electrical activity label-free with short pulses of infrared light.

[16] Termed infrared neural stimulation (INS), the field of label-free neuromodulation has evolved over the last decade built on these initial findings.

[11] In 2018, 10 years after Mahadevan-Jensen demonstrated that parathyroid gland tissues glow under near-infrared light, the Food and Drug Administration approved that the technology could be used for surgeries.

[19] Before Mahadevan-Jansen's technology, surgeons relied on a visual assessment to identify the location of the parathyroid gland.

[31] Her publications include; Mahadevan-Jansen is married to Duco Jansen, a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University.