She is a social psychologist and Director of Dataluminescence Research in Kuala Lumpur, which is a research house providing data-driven clarity and nuance to complex social challenges. She was the principal investigator and lead author for the study sponsored by CIMB Foundation in 2017 (“Ethnoreligious Integration: Overcoming Challenges and Maximising the Promise of Multicultural Malaysia”), and the study undertaken by Merdeka Centre in 2018 (“Religious Extremism in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand: Prevalence, Narratives and Contributory Factors”). In general, Ananthi works in the areas of inter-ethnic/inter-religious relations, education policy related to questions of ethnic and national integration, multiculturalism, prejudice-reduction, and most recently, religious extremism. Her work has appeared in international journals such as American Psychologist and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She also writes opinion pieces for Malaysian newspapers. She has a PhD from the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford.