Paula Richman is an Emerita William H. Danforth Professor of South Asian Religions at Oberlin College.
[4] She began her study of the Ramayana and the Tamil language during her education.
[4] In 1997, she was named to the Irvin E. Houck professorship in Humanities for a period of five years.
[4] During her career, she traveled to conduct lectures, including to India and Copenhagen.
[4][5] Richman and her co-editor Rustom Bharucha spent eight years developing the book Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations and Arguments, which includes essays, photographs, interviews, and scripts for theatrical productions, and was published in 2021.