Directory

The diverse and innovative realms of biomedical sciences and healthcare captured my imagination since my days at Karachi Grammar School. As I commenced my medical training at Cambridge, I was astounded by the complex collection of molecular machines and networks that formed an unlikely, harmonious cooperative: the human body. I periodically satiated my curiosity with research projects exploring proteins involved in cancer metastasis and novel prognostic tests for chronic liver disease. At Caltech, I also investigated human neural reference frames in Brain Machine Interfaces. This inspired a Part II in Neuroscience, which gradually revealed the dearth of approved medications for neural tumours. This burning necessity drove me to cofound a cancer therapeutics and drug delivery bio-startup, angioClast, which is developing a sophisticated treatment strategy for vascularised tumours. As an MB/PhD student, I hope to study the cryptic world of RNA and DNA modifications at the Kouzarides Lab. This hitherto unexplored field has groundbreaking implications for future therapeutics. During this program, I also hope to further delve into the fascinating fields of public health and health-tech. These interests were shaped by my forays into public policy for Neglected Tropical Diseases, and a micro-financing social venture featured at the Hult Prize Regional Final. In the future, I wish to discover synergies across the journey from bench to bedside, delivering innovative personalised medicine and effective public health interventions.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge

Growing up in Cairo, in the midst of the overwhelming inequalities in the healthcare system, I wanted nothing more than to become a practicing physician focused on improving healthcare quality for all. As I became integrated in the science behind the medical field, I was hooked. During my undergraduate studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, I have become fascinated by the field of cancer biology and its vast molecular processes. For my senior thesis at Harvard Medical School, I chose to focus on stem cell biology and cancer using the genetically-tractable zebrafish model of T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Since then, my passion is to understand the molecular underpinnings governing the genesis of tumors and be able to relate my studies in human patients. I am very honored to become part of the Gates community and I hope to one day contribute to the growth of translational research and become a leader in the Oncology field.

My background in Veterinary Medicine has provided me with a substantial scientific and clinical foundation. It has proven advantageous since I made a deliberate decision years ago to pursue a research career. Additionally, volunteer social engagement has enabled me to serve my society in Egypt in various aspects. My prior involvement in research in France, Spain, Japan and the UK has equipped me with valuable experiences. During my MSc in Neuroscience at Bordeaux University, I investigated the impact of epigenetic regulators on cortical development and related neurological disorders using brain organoids. I continued to work in this domain as a research assistant at Lakatos Lab.In my PhD, I would like to focus on an incurable disease called Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). I aim to explore the impact of mutations causing early-onset disease on cortical development using a 3D human neural organoid system. By understanding this, I hope to identify epigenetic regulators that might contribute to disease development and can be targeted for drug discovery. I am grateful for the opportunity to join the Gates Cambridge community and feel privileged to contribute to a group that values both intellectual and social excellence equally.

As a younger student and architect, the paradox that is Cairo’s Urbanism had me spellbound. Cairo is a thrilling yet frustrating megacity of endless contradictions that malfunctions beautifully. Throughout studying and later teaching Architecture and Urban Design at the German University in Cairo, I derived immense gratification from trying to untangle the complexity of the city. I have been specifically interested in questions of housing, its provision, use and perception. Alongside, I was exposed to on-ground parallel participatory initiatives and urban research offices which tackle urgent issues in the city. Accordingly, I became inspired to passionately explore these issues as an MPhil student at the University of Cambridge. In my PhD, I aim to question the condition of housing vacancy, its differentiated categories, and varied underlying reasons and mechanisms of occurrence. As I continue to be exposed to further research on Cairo within a vibrant network of mentors and colleagues, my thirst for learning keeps increasing with a growing commitment in me to treat my education as a life-long endeavor. Yet, I believe research must be consistently geared to have meaningful impact on people’s lives. I am honored to belong to the Gates community and hope to use the platform to pursue my aspiration of becoming an academically well-grounded individual who is able to critically think, inspire, educate, advocate, mediate and ultimately drive meaningful change.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Architecture and Urban Studies 2019
German University in Cairo Architecture and Urban Design 2018
German University in Cairo Architecture and Urban Design 2016

I enjoy learning new ideas of physics at high energies and want to contribute to our understanding of the secrets of nature. The Gates Cambridge Scholarship has given me an opportunity for tools and experience gathering towards achieving that.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Part III Mathematics 2005
African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, South Africa PG Mathematical Sciences 2004
Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria B.Sc. Physics 2002

I was born in Mexico but moved to Texas as a child. My background in a bilingual household first inspired me to study linguistics at Princeton University. Today I am interested in how new experimental methods such as fMRI, EEG, MEG, and mass online questionnaires allow us to test linguistic theories from the 20th century like never before, and how these can be applied to the field of second language acquisition. The way I see it, an individual language teacher may teach somebody how to fish, but a psycholinguist could one day help ""teach somebody how to teach somebody how to fish."" In this way, I want to help give others access to the same opportunities I had as a speaker of the lingua franca in a linguistically unequal world.

One of the most uniquely human capabilities may be the general ability of dealing with novel situations and complex problems. In my PhD I am studying the neuronal dynamics of complex problem solving and computations underlying general intelligence in brains and machines. My research is supervised by John Duncan (Cambridge) and Matt Botvinick (Google DeepMind).

I have always been interested in understanding the complex systems of everyday life from a quantitative point of view and hence decided to study the psychology of markets when doing my undergraduate in Osnabrück, Germany. It was at that time that I developed a fascination for human decision making and behavioural economics which lead me to join the Policy Research Group at Cambridge’s Department of Psychology. Even though I enjoyed our work there, using behavioural research methods to design evidence based policy interventions, I started to be more interested in the neuronal mechanisms behind human decision making – namely, how do we extract and process complex information in the first place? Therefore, I joined the MRC Cognition and Brain Science Unit towards the end of my undergraduate. Here I remained ever since and explored how one can understand high level phenomena (decision making / intelligence) and their underlying neural code. The two phenomena I am especially interested in are compositional problem solving and rapid one-shot-learning. 


Outside the lab I enjoy making music (being a trumpeter and guitarist myself) as well as long distance running. I also co-founded and serve on the board of organisations fostering sustainable community development in South African townships.

Previous Education

Osnabr Business Psychology 2019

I am honored to be studying criminology in Cambridge. I am particularly interested in narratives of criminality, particularly the dehumanizing rhetoric used to describe criminals in the U.S., e.g. calling them monsters, scum, beasts, etc. In my experience such language is often followed by espoused support for harsh punishment. I am curious whether a similar narrative of criminality exists in the U.K. and, if so, how such a narrative might relate to a national attitude on criminal punishment. I will be applying this year to PhD programs in the US and eventually would like to teach, research, and stay involved in non-profit prison reform organizations.

I was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary but moved to Canada to undertake a B.A. in Economics and International Relations. I studied law at Cambridge. I then completed the Legal Practice Course in London and currently work as a solicitor in the Antitrust team at Clifford Chance LLP in London.

Previous Education

University of British Columbia BA Economics and International Relations 2006
American International School, Budapest IBO (International Baccalaureate Dip.) 1999
Lycée Français de Budapest, Hungary DALF (Diplome Approfondi de langue Française)

I'm currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science in the Emotionally Intelligent Interfaces research group of the Computer Laboratory. My research focuses on applying affective computing and social robotics in an intervention for children with autism spectrum conditions. Specifically, I'm using a highly-realistic robotic head to facilitate emotion recognition from facial expressions. I love travelling and hiking, and am looking forward to another year of exploring the incredible trails in the UK and throughout Europe.

Although I am perfoming my PhD work in the Physics Department at the Cavendish Laboratory, my primary research is in Statistical Machine Learning, a sub-field of Artificial Intelligence. I study the mathematical properties of collections of independent adaptive entities, using Bayesian statistical techniques. I believe that this approach to AI has far-reaching implications both for understanding the brain and for the long-term development of machine intelligence.

Born and bred in the economic capital of South Africa, Johannesburg, I transitioned from an academic research background in biochemistry to the burgeoning biotechnology field. I now aim to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and real-world application in the Global South. My journey began in muddy waters researching the impacts of invasive water hyacinths during high school. I completed a BSc in Biochemistry (Hons.) and an MSc in Molecular and Cell Biology by research at the University of the Witwatersrand. Thereafter, I worked with a South African biotechnology company, where I learned to integrate scientific product development with business feasibility and regulatory considerations to provide integrated scientific advice to the executive team. Upon my return to South Africa, I hope to use the cross-functional toolkit and practical bioscience enterprise training from the Cambridge MBE to drive system-wide innovation as a founder or as a leader in an existing biotechnology firm and thereby enable a competitive biotechnology sector in the region.

Previous Education

University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Molecular and Cell Biology 2023
University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Biochemistry and Cell Biology 2020

As a student of the society, I hope to help in mobilizing intellectual and social resources for the creation of a better world.