Sumitra Badrinathan

Sumitra Badrinathan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Her research focusses on political communication in South Asia, with an emphasis on new platforms like WhatsApp and their effects on political misinformation, media trust, and the quality of democracy. She uses experimental and survey methods to investigate potential solutions to misinformation in developing countries along with the consequences of misinformation on political and societal outcomes, including vote choice, polarisation, and social cohesion.

Her work has appeared in academic journals such as the American Political Science Review well as popular press such as The Washington Post.

She holds a Masters in Political Science from the University of Chicago and a Bachelors in Psychology from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.