Her scholarship and teaching address racial justice and policy issues in higher education, with a focus on how institutional environments such as campus climates and cultures shape college access and racialized experiences, outcomes, and resistance to genuinely inclusive engagement. Jayakumar is a 2017-2018 Spencer Midcareer award recipient. Her scholarship is featured in Educational Researcher, Journal of Higher Education, Harvard Educational Review, and across numerous amicus briefs to the Supreme Court in the most recent (Fisher v. University of Texas) affirmative action cases.