About

Lalitha M Vasudevan is a Professor of Technology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she also serves as Vice Dean for Digital Innovation and Managing Director of the Teachers College Digital Futures Institute. She is the Director of the Media and Social Change Lab. Her academic background includes a B.A. in Psychology and a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. Her scholarly interests focus on communication and new media, adolescent literacies, media literacy, multimodal storytelling, and the anthropology of education. Vasudevan's work explores how digital literacies and multimodal pedagogies can be used to foster belonging, justice, and critical engagement among youth, particularly in urban and court-involved contexts. She has contributed to the field through numerous publications, including books, articles, and book chapters, and has been recognized for her innovative research and teaching in the areas of media, literacy, and digital education.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Public relations
• Medicine
• Environmental health
• Nursing
• Criminology
• Anthropology

Selected publications

• The Architecture of Academic Overproduction: Toward Post-AI Scholarship

  Lecture notes in computer science · 2025-11-12

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author

  This article critically examines the accelerating phenomenon of academic overproduction, tracing its roots from exponential publication growth in the late twentieth century to the contemporary landscape overwhelmed by digitization, global competition, shifting publication economics and now artificial intelligence. The surge of scholarly output, enabled by advanced digital infrastructures, open-access models, and mega-journals has fueled not only greater access and collaboration, but also mounting information overload, declining editorial standards, and the evolution of a research workforce that spends more and more time chasing metrics. Against this backdrop, the rise of generative artificial intelligence is poised to further intensify these dynamics through both “flattening” (the homogenization and proliferation of scholarly writing) and “enslopification,” defined as the mass production of low-quality academic content optimized for metrics rather than insight. These issues reflect deeper epistemological tensions within academic research, between cultures of “knowledge sharing” and “knowledge transfer”. Rather than simply blaming digital technologies or AI, we argue that quantification pressures, institutional incentives, and the commodification of research have primed the academy for a crisis of relevance and authenticity. It is thus imperative to reimagine research beyond compliance-driven production and superficial debates about AI integration, instead advocating for multimodal, participatory, and dialogical scholarship. Meaningful reform demands a shift from metric-driven output toward research that cultivates agency, reflection, and genuine public engagement, urging institutions and scholars to reclaim the value and purpose of scholarly inquiry in a post-AI world.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Editorial multimodality and society

  Multimodality & Society · 2024-01-05

  articleOpen access

  This issue, the first of volume 4, marks the start of Multimodality & Society's fourth year and provides a good moment to look across the past 3 years to review and reflect on the journal's contribution to multimodality. Multimodality & Society aims to consolidate and advance multimodal theory, methodologies, and empirical understanding of interaction and communication. This editorial considers the collective contribution of the 12 issues published to date and points to how the journal can continue to push the boundaries of multimodality forward.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Plurality of Measures: From Scale to Modality: Mapping Changes in Assessment and Its Implications for Learning Analytics

  Advances in analytics for learning and teaching · 2024-01-01

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Collaborative Research in Theory and Practice

  Policy Press eBooks · 2022-08-18 · 1 citations

  bookSenior author

  This book is concerned with the poetics of research, that is the art of doing collaborative research. The reader is introduced to some key terms, including polyphony, enchantment and worthiness, that can guide a researcher through the journey of working with people and making sense together.

  PublisherDOI

• 8 Unplanning

  Bristol University Press eBooks · 2022-08-18

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Front Matter

  Bristol University Press eBooks · 2022-08-18

  paratextOpen access

  This book is concerned with the poetics of research, that is the art of doing collaborative research. The reader is introduced to some key terms, including polyphony, enchantment and worthiness, that can guide a researcher through the journey of working with people and making sense together.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Worthiness

  Policy Press eBooks · 2022-08-18

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Worthiness is a necessary precursor to empathy, which is vital for the type of collaborative and participatory co-production research we sought to pursue in the ‘Reimagining Futures’ project. The work of organizing research projects to create conditions for more than the mere inclusion of multiple voices in the research can be seemingly inherent in research pursued with (rather than on or about, for example) communities, organizations, young people, or some combination thereabouts.

  PublisherDOI

• Embodiment

  Bristol University Press eBooks · 2022-08-18

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• 1 Introduction

  Bristol University Press eBooks · 2022-08-18

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Embodiment

  Bristol University Press eBooks · 2022-08-18

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kate Pahl

  Manchester Metropolitan University

  22 shared

• Richard Steadman-Jones

  22 shared

• Kristine Rodriguez Kerr

  18 shared

• Steve Pool

  13 shared

• Katie Scott Newhouse

  New York University

  10 shared

• Cristina Salazar Gallardo

  10 shared

• Hugh Escott

  9 shared

• Vicky Ward

  University of St Andrews

  9 shared

Education

• B.A., Psychology

  University of Pennsylvania

• Ph.D., Education

  University of Pennsylvania

Awards & honors

• 2010 Strage Prize