Professor Nityananda is a physicist who has worked in areas of optics and condensed matter, and image processing Gravitational lensing, and galaxy dynamics. He worked at the Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru, from 1975-2000. He then joined at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, first as Centre Director of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics from 2000-2010, and then as Centre Director at the TIFR Centre for interdisciplinary science, Hyderabad (2011-2012). He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in physics and astronomy at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and the IISERs at Pune and Mohali He is now with the School of liberal studies at Azim Premji University, teaching physics and mathematics courses to undergraduates.

He has been the Chief Editor of the physics and astronomy journals of the Indian Academy of Sciences and currently serves as Chief Editor of "Resonance", the Academy's Journal of Science Education. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences (1986). Indian National Science Academy (1998), and the National Academy of Sciences (2000). He received “the Kariamanikkam Srinivasa Krishnan Memorial Lecture Award, from INSA in 2004. He has served on the Steering Committee of the Australia Telescope National Facility, President of the Astronomical Society of India, and as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli.