Priya Satia's research interests span modern British cultural and political history, colonialism and imperialism, colonial knowledge, history of democracy, the experience and practice of war, technology and culture, human rights and humanitarianism, the state and institutions of government, arms trade, industrial revolution, partitions, Indian Ocean world, political economy of empire, and environmental history.

Satia was raised in Los Gatos, California and educated at Stanford, the London School of Economics, and the University of California, Berkeley where she earned her Ph.D. in 2004. She is currently Associate Professor of History at Stanford where she teaches courses on modern Britain and the British Empire.

Satia's latest book Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2008) has been the recipient of several book prizes including the 2009 AHA-Pacific Coast Branch Book Award, the AHA Herbert Baxter Adams Book Prize in 2009, and the 2010 Pacific Coast Conference of British Studies Book Prize.

Her work can also be found in academic journals such as the American Historical Review and Past and Present. Her article, “The Defense of Inhumanity: Air Control in Iraq and the British Idea of Arabia” won the Article Prize of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies for 2005-2006 and the 2007 Walter D. Love Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies.

Satia is currently researching the manufacture, trade, and use of small arms in the British empire for her book project, Empire of Guns: The British State, the Industrial Revolution, and the Conscience of a Quaker Arms-Maker. The book has been supported by the NEH, ACLS, the Clayman Institute, and APS.