[3] Originally trained as a plant evolutionary biologist, she writes about social and cultural aspects of science as they relate to experimental biology.
[11] Subramaniam grew up in India[12] and received a baccalaureate degree from Stella Maris College at the University of Madras.
[12] Her Ph.D. thesis was Maintenance of the Flower Color Polymorphism at the W Locus in the Common Morning Glory, Ipomoea purpurea (1994).
[16] In 2000, she received a National Science Foundation grant to study soil communities and their effects on invasive plant species.
[19] She writes at the intersection of the social and the scientific to question how we understand variation and diversity, and her work encourages disruption of binary disciplinary thinking.