Dr. Ravindran's research focuses on understanding the moment-to-moment dynamics of parent-child interaction during emotionally challenging situations in early childhood, at both behavioral and physiological levels. She examines factors that contribute to parents' responses to young children's negative emotions in real time, as well as how these parental responses promote or hinder children's developing ability to effectively manage negative emotions and stress. She is also interested in examining how sociocultural factors such as contextual stress shape the dynamics of parent-child interaction, and how these dynamics in turn contribute to children's long-term adjustment. To address her research questions, she uses observational coding of laboratory tasks, naturalistic audio recordings of family interactions in the home, physiological assessments (e.g., RSA, EDA), and surveys, and she applies intensive longitudinal methods such as multilevel modeling to examine within- and between-person processes in parents and children.