AARATHI PRASAD
WRITER & RESEARCHER
01 about
Aarathi Prasad is a writer, researcher and presenter interested in the intersection of science and technology with cultures, history, health, and the environment. She is the author of SILK: a history in three metamorphoses (2023); IN THE BONESETTER'S WAITING ROOM: travels through Indian medicine (2016); and LIKE A VIRGIN: how science is redesigning the rules of sex (2012), and co-editor of THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF PLANETARY DESTRUCTION (2023). She has written and presented radio and television documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4, and the Discovery Channel. Aarathi has a PhD in genetics from Imperial College London and postgraduate training in bioarchaeology. She is a Research Fellow in the UCL Plastic Waste Innovation Hub, with a focus on engineering biology; and an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London’s Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, where she is part of an international team excavating and analysing ancient DNA from funerary sites in Spain, Rome, and Pompeii.
02 writing
03 broadcast
Brave New World with Stephen Hawking (Discovery Channel / Channel 4) | Science of the Future with Stephen Hawking (Discovery Channel / National Geographic Channel) | Tomorrow's World (BBC 1) | Is it Better to be Mixed Race? (Channel 4) | Should We Raise Children in Mixed Marriages? (4thought) | On skin colour and being British (Channel4 News) | Rewinding the Menopause (BBC Radio 4) | Quest for Virgin Birth (BBC Radio 4)
The New York Review of Books
"Prasad ranges beyond the familiar... an accomplished popularizer of science."
New Scientist
“A hugely successful braid of reproductive biology, history of science, and politics, this is science writing that will keep you up past your bedtime.”
Lancet
“beautifully observed vignettes...”
David Wengrow, co-author of the international bestseller The Dawn of Everything
'Both scientific and poetic, this remarkable book shows how the great tides of history are shaped through human encounters with the intricate variety of the non-human world'
Sy Montgomery, bestselling author of The Soul of an Octopus and Of Time and Turtles
"A masterpiece of a story, as luminous, supple, and surprising as the wondrous threads themselves."
David Eagleman, Neuroscientist, Author of Incognito and Sum
“Prasad’s whip-smart, eye-popping book takes us on a journey into the heart of gender and reproduction—a journey whose strange history is matched only by its unexpected future.”