S. Ramaswamy obtained his PhD in molecular biophysics in 1992 at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and conducted postdoctoral research in X-ray crystallography from 1992 to 1994 at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala.

From 2000 to 2009, he was an active, productive and highly collaborative faculty member at The University of Iowa Department of Biochemistry, who contributed greatly to the growth of structural biology at the Carver College of Medicine. In June 2009, he accepted a position as Senior Professor and Dean of inStem, the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine in Bangalore, India.