Pragya Agarwal is a British/Indian writer and academic, and the founder of research think-tank The 50 Percent Project investigating global gender inequalities. She studied in India and UK, and since her PhD has worked as a senior academic in UK, USA, Germany and Australia. 

She is currently a visiting professor of social inequities and injustice at Loughborough University and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newnham College, University of Cambridge. She is also a visiting scholar at Oxord Centre of Life Writing at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, a Fulbright Fellow at City University of New York, and the Vartan Gregorian Centre for Humanities at New York Public Library.

Most recently, she has received fellowships from the British Library, Bodliean Library, Maynooth University, Churchill Foundation, and a writing residency with Hawthornden Foundation and UNESCO City of Literature Reykjavik. She has been awarded the Transmission Prize for 'making complex scientific ideas accessible' and Crucible NESTA award for 'innovative inter-disciplinary work', and funding from Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society, British Academy, Society of Authors, and Royal Society of Literature for her research and writing. 

Agarwal is the author of four widely acclaimed non-fiction books including Sway (which was Guardian 'Book of the Week' and NYPL ‘Book of the Day’), Hysterical and (M)otherhood that were nominated as best smart thinking and popular science books of the year. Sway and Hysterical have also been translated in Korean, Turkish and Chinese. Agarwal has also written for The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired, Scientific American. Times Literary Supplement, Literary Hub, amongst others. She is currently writing a book for The Bodley Head (UK) and Ecco Books (USA) which will also be translated into Italian, Dutch and German.

Pragya works as a consultant and speaker with organisations around the world, including universities, corporate and non-profits, and schools, delivering talks and workshops on bias, anti-racism, social inclusion, power and privilege. She regularly appears on panels and has given keynotes around the world. Pragya has appeared on NPR, BBC Woman’s Hour, BBC Breakfast, Sky News, Australian Broadcasting Service, and Canadian Radio. A passionate campaigner for women’s rights, and two-time TEDx speaker herself, Pragya organised the first ever TEDxWoman event in the north of the UK . Pragya is the winner of the Diverse Wisdom Writing award from Hay House Publishing in 2018, and was named as one of the 100 influential women in social enterprise in the UK, and one of 50 people creating change in the UK-India corridor.

Pragya has a mini podcast series ‘Outside the boxes’ examining how the labels and stereotypes affect us as a society, the science behind it, and what we can do about it. And, in 2020, she launched another mini-series ‘Wish We Knew What To Say’ to accompany her book of the same name. In six episodes, she speaks with parents of different ethnic backgrounds about their experiences and raising children with secure identities.

In 2024, Agarwal was invited to deliver keynotes at the MotherNet Conference at Vilnius University (Lithuanaia), at the Barbara Hepworth symposium at Tate St Ives, Motherhood conference at Wheeler’s Centre (Melbourne), All About Women Conference at Sydney Opera House, and on art and motherhood at Birmingham Art Gallery. She has also given talks at Hay Festival, Edinburgh Literature Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Emirates Literature Festival, Dublin Literature Festival, and Northern Ireland Science Festival. Pragya also teaches creative writing courses for Arvon, Ty Newydd, and Irish Writers Centre.

She was born in India and now lives between UK and Ireland.