Five Gates Cambridge Scholars will discuss their work, ranging from 3D bioprinting to whistleblowing, at a Cambridge Festival panel event tomorrow.
Five Gates Cambridge Scholars will discuss their work in fields ranging from whistleblowing to plant science and 3D bioprinting at the Cambridge Festival this evening.
The event, Ideas that could change the world, will be hosted by journalist Catherine Galloway and held in Bill Gates Sr. House.
The speakers are Jennifer Gibson, Carol Ibe, Divya Venkatesh, Josh Weygant and Alexandra Grigore.
Jennifer Gibson [2001] is Co-founder of Psst.org, a platform where insiders can safely share their stories collectively. She was previously Legal Director of the Signals Network, a whistleblower support organisation, and worked for 10 years as Head of Extrajudicial Killings/Staff Attorney at Reprieve. She has also worked as a Lead Researcher at Save the Children UK and as a Law Clerk at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. She did her MPhil in International Relations at Cambridge and has a Doctor of Law from Stanford Law School. For more information on her work, click here.
Carol Ibe [2015] is the Founder and Executive Director of the JR Biotek Foundation, an innovative organisation dedicated to empowering African agricultural researchers with the expertise and resources needed to address hunger, malnutrition, and poverty across Africa. She did her PhD in Plant Sciences at Cambridge and completed postdoctoral research at the John Innes Centre. For more information on her work, click here.
Divya Venkatesh [2011] is a BBSRC Discovery Fellow at the University of Oxford, where she studies influenza A viruses. Her research investigates how these viruses — naturally found in wild waterfowl — spill over into new hosts, sometimes triggering devastating outbreaks. She focuses on influenza evolution and disease susceptibility in grey and harbour seals, two closely related species that show strikingly different responses to infection. She is also examining the dynamics and pandemic potential. For more information on her work, click here.
Josh Weygant [2023] is a current Gates Cambridge Scholar doing a PhD in Engineering for which he is investigating how we can utilise bioprinting to fabricate multi-organ-on-chip systems which potentially can be used for personalised medicine. He previously studied Physics Engineering at the RheinMain University, and then, during his Masters at the University of Freiburg, he fell in love with the field of biofabrication, which also led him to research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. For more information on his work, click here. You can also watch this Youtube video of the 3D bioprinter the team he works with have developed for testing immunotherapy treatments in relation to cancer.
Impact Prize winner Alexandra Grigore [2012] is Chief Strategy Officer at and Co-Founder of Simprints, a non-profit tech company which aims to revolutionise transparency and accountability in global development. Simprints collaborates with leading multilaterals like The Global Fund to improve health systems, Ministries of Health like Ghana to strengthen immunisation coverages, and NGOs like BRAC to enhance maternal healthcare. To date, Simprints has helped three million people across 17 countries to access essential health services. Most recently, they partnered with Ghana’s Ministry of Health to transparently deliver malaria vaccines to ~10% of the country’s population (watch this 3 minute video). Their technology also plays a critical role in tracking interventions for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria, helping ensure funders, ministries and NGOs share an accurate record of every dollar spent and person reached. They are also developing the world’s first AI infant biometrics, a breakthrough that could transform early-life healthcare delivery.
There are a range of other Gates Cambridge-related events at the Cambridge Festival. They include Leor Zmigrod [2016] speaking about her new book, The Ideological Brain, on 1st April, Carol Ibe [2015] who leads the Roots of Resilience: A Decade of Empowering African Ag-Scientists for Food Security and Sustainability event on 27th March, and Seetha Tan who is talking about the Black Town & Gown film that she co-created. It will be shown on 28th March at Lady Mitchell Hall. Reetika Subramanian [2019], creator of the Climate Brides Podcast, is speaking today on a panel about reproductive justice in a changing climate. She will also be launching a new ebook on reproduction in a changing world and Climate Brides is participating in an exhibition on climate and reproduction at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, with a focus on (un)tying the knots between climate change and early marriage. Kim van Daalen [2018] will also take part in the exhibition in relation to her work on sexual and reproductive health in a changing climate.
*The event is sold out, but there is a waiting list that people can sign up to on the Eventbrite link here.
**Picture credit: Unsplash and Riccardo Annandale
