S. Subramanian is a former Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) National Fellow and a former professor of the Madras Institute of Development Studies . Subramanian is an elected fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association (HDCA). He has worked extensively on measurement and other aspects of poverty, inequality, and demography, and on topics in collective choice theory, welfare economics, and development economics. In 2015, he was appointed as a member of the Advisory Board of the World Bank's Commission on Global Poverty under the Chairmanship of Sir Anthony Atkinson. He lives and works in Chennai.