Grusha Agarwal

I am a PhD candidate in the Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management (OBHRM) department in the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

I study the high-stakes moments at work when the rules aren’t clear—applying for a dream job, deciding whether to speak up, or sharing a part of your identity. My research traces how people, especially those from marginalized groups, navigate these moments: what they think organizations value, how they try to meet those expectations, and what happens when those beliefs are off target. Using field data, experiments, interviews, and text analysis, I uncover the hidden frictions in these decisions and how we can design workplaces where more people feel they belong, are heard, and can thrive.

Prior to graduate school, I worked as a Research Associate at Columbia Business School. I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, with a B.S. in Psychology and minors in Sociology and Statistics.