Pragya Agarwal

Fulbright All Disciplines Scholar Award - CUNY Graduate Center

Professor Pragya Agarwal is a behavioural and data scientist, and founder of a research think-tank 'The 50 Percent Project'. Born in India, Agarwal came to the UK almost twenty-one years on a British Council fellowship to study for a Masters and stayed on to do a PhD. Following a PhD from the University of Nottingham, Pragya held the prestigious Leverhulme Fellowship and has held senior academic positions and visiting fellowships around the globe.

She is currently a visiting professor of social inequities and injustice in the UK, and holds fellowships from University of Oxford, Newnham College (Cambridge), Churchill Trust, British Library/Eccles Center for The Americas, and Royal Literary Foundation. She is the author of four widely acclaimed non-fiction books including Sway (which was Guardian 'Book of the Week'), Hysterical and (M)otherhood, and her writing has also appeared widely in The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired, Scientific American, Times Literary Supplement, Literary Hub, amongst others. Pragya has been awarded the Transmission Prize for 'making complex scientific ideas accessible' and Crucible NESTA award for 'innovative inter-disciplinary work', and funding from Royal Society, Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, Society of Authors, and Royal Society of Literature.

As part of the Fulbright Scholar award, Agarwal will be researching bias in legal systems, specifically in the areas of immigration and reproductive justice. She is also interested in studying the role of maps and data in judicial decision-making.

More information on Pragya's research and writing can be found on her Twitter and Instagram: @drpragyaagarwal and her website drpragyaagarwal.com