Sriram works on nonequilibrium, soft-matter and biological physics, including: the collective behaviour of self-driven particles; the glass transition; complex fluid flow; how quantum matter thermalises; and ecological phase transitions. His first research papers were on general relativity.

He completed his schooling at the Modern School, New Delhi, in 1973 and obtained his B.S. in Physics from the University of Maryland in 1977. He received his PhD in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1983 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, 1983-86. He is currently Senior Professor and Centre Director at the TIFR Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, on leave from the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science where he has worked since May 1986. He is an honorary faculty member of the JNCASR, Bangalore.