Dr Pawar is a writer, scholar, and speaker drawn to the deep questions—concerning consciousness, love, language and what it means to be human. Working at the intersections of philosophy, literature, and science, she publishes fiction, poetry, essays, and criticism. Her writing has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and the BBC, among other places.

Born in California, she left home at 17 to teach English in Indonesia, then spent years moving across continents—teaching, writing, and studying in cities including Kolkata, Incheon, Montreal, London, and New York. She holds a double BA in English Literature and Philosophy from Boston College, an Interdisciplinary MA in Humanities and Social Thought from NYU, and a DPhil from Oxford. She spends intermittent periods of personal retreat in Alcamo, Sicily, birthplace of Italian poetry.

Her research explores the meeting points of metaphor and mind. Her doctoral thesis at Oxford uncovered lost philosophical influences on T.S. Eliot, from Bertrand Russell’s logical atomism to Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology. It was published without her consent and remains in an unedited form. As a Rothermere Scholar, she also conducted research at Harvard and Cambridge.

Beyond academia, Dr Pawar helped relaunch the Oxford University Poetry Society, co-founded the Oxford branch of English PEN, and led the creation of Oxford Writers’ House—a space for creative exchange between students, international authors, and the wider Oxford community. What began as a small circle has since grown into a vibrant organisation hosting global lectures, readings, bestselling authors, podcasts, workshops, and an international writing prize for young authors.

She has read and lectured widely upon invitation, with recent appearances at the Ashmolean Museum, the House of Lords, the House of Commons, and international schools in the UK, Vienna, Italy, and beyond. She welcomes invitations for readings, lectures, or collaborative projects.