Directory

Great minds such as Keynes brought me to this stimulating environment to encounter a unique mixture of culture and science heritage. The Cambridge experience has made my past few years memorable and has enriched my preparation for the challenges ahead.

Looking back, my immense curiosity about fundamental science started in my childhood. Consciously or not, it always fascinated me how rich structures lie beneath the very simple first principles. During my undergraduate years at Cambridge in Mathematics, I explored theoretical physics through courses and summer research and discovered my passion for high-energy physics. Looking ahead to my PhD, I will be supervised by Professor Sean Hartnoll and will focus on the emergence of spacetime using models in matrix quantum mechanics, which is a subject inspired by condensed matter physics and closely related to string theory. It has the potential of unifying gravity with quantum field theory and solving some of the biggest mysteries in high-energy physics, e.g. the black hole microstates problem. The aim is to use techniques in Quantum Information and Random Matrix Theory to develop a probe to understand such strongly interacting systems. Meanwhile, I will commit myself to widespread fundamental sciences and let more people enjoy the beauty and elegance of maths and physics. It is my great honour to join the Gates Cambridge community and strive together with the future leaders of our generation to make our world a better place.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Mathematics 2022

Have graduated from Electrical, Electronic and Computer Science Department, the University of Birmingham as a top student, I am now a PhD student in the field of Photonic Systems. Before this, I did 2 years study at Fudan University, Shanghai, with a top result in the major of Optical Science and Technology. I am interested in the project on superradiant emission from a semiconductor structure, which would be a promising technology for laser development.

I received BEngr (2000) and MSc (2003) from Heilongjiang University and Jilin University in China, respectively. In 2003, I obtained Gates Cambridge Trust and Overseas Research Studentship and pursued PhD at the University of Cambridge, working with Prof. Wilhelm T. S. Huck at Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis, Chemistry Department. In 2007, I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in USA, carrying out post-doctoral work with Prof. Nicholas L. Abbott at Chemical & Biological Engineering Department. In 2010, I joined Chemistry Department at Tsinghua University as Associate Professor. My research interests include soft matter and interfaces.

Songqiao Yao is the founder and CEO of Wildbound.earth, an innovative nature-inspired education and sustainability consulting venture based in Beijing, China. After her Mphil in Geography from Cambridge as a Gates Scholar, Songqiao went on to study for an MBA as a Skoll Scholar at Oxford Said Business School.

Previous Education

Mount Holyoke College 2007

Links

http://www.wildbound.earth
http://www.linkedin.com/songqiaoyao

I grew up in Canberra, Australia’s capital - rich in both wilderness and politics - so it’s unsurprising that I became interested in both. I completed my B.Sc. in Zoology at the Australian National University, investigating how evolutionary history can be used to inform conservation planning. While studying, I worked for federal Labor Senator Kate Lundy. My time in politics included work in government, a federal election campaign, and a subsequent stint in opposition, after which I returned to research. Currently, I am using evolutionary models to reconstruct the last common ancestor of the African apes (gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees and humans of course) to complete my MPhil in Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge. My PhD will see me examine the evolution of African mammals over the last five million years, looking for innovative adaptations that allowed species to occupy new environments. This work will help to shed light on the processes that drove the evolution of form in mammals. I hope to combine the opportunities afforded by Gates Cambridge and the skills I gained working in politics to become a scientific communicator and an advocate for higher eduction and research.

Previous Education

Australian National University
University of Cambridge

As a medical physicist, I enjoy solving problems at the intersection of disciplines. During my MPhil with the Cambridge computational radiotherapy group, I used deformable image registration to investigate discrepancies between planned and delivered dose to the spinal cord for head-and-neck cancer patients, and correlated delivered dose with Lhermitte’s Sign toxicity. My PhD project will focus on adaptive radiotherapy, which entails adapting cancer treatment plans to patients’ changing anatomies over the course of treatment. I will be developing and evaluating machine learning and deep learning methods to predict and minimise errors between registered CT images. I am also interested in the use of generative models to enhance the quality of cone-beam CT scans, such that they can be used directly for plan adaptation. This research will hopefully enable and enhance adaptive radiotherapy workflows in the clinic, and contribute towards personalised and precision medicine. Having worked in the education and public policy sectors in Singapore, I am also passionate about democratising STEM education and improving access to career guidance for youths. Outside of work, I can be found exploring far-flung corners of the world with my camera.

My research focuses on how neural codes translate into behavior. Such questions should guide us in understanding how brains work and hopefully, one day, aid in solving the mystery of consciousness. Our model organism is C. elegans, a tiny, harmless nematode that lives in the soil -- and within Petri dishes in our lab. I am building a system to record long videos of worm experiments, automatically extract and analyze behavior from the video, then populate a large searchable database with these experimental results. Thereafter, we hope to marry this database with concurrent imaging of neurons defining the expressed behavior.

Joanna is currently building Arukah, decarbonising agriculture in Asia and Africa. She has strong conviction on the potential to lift billions out of poverty with verified data, new technology for secure payments and settlement, and financing for scalable access to sustainable, fast growing markets.

Joanna serves as an impact investment committee member for the United Nations Sanitation and Hygiene Fund, and advisor to Figure Technologies, an MUFG and Apollo-backed fintech company that has scaled $12Bn of regulated financial services on blockchain. She has previously served as an independent non-executive board director of Collectius AG, a partner to the World Bank IFC's $40Bn+ DARP program in SE Asia.

She was previously a private assets investor at Morgan Stanley, head of Asia and first dedicated executive hire for blockchain at Figure Technologies and Provenance Blockchain, and led a $700M global private equity portfolio at a listed financial services conglomerate. She has also been part of core teams building two new $2Bn traditional investment management businesses in Asia, including Morgan Stanley.

Joanna received her Bachelor's Summa cum Laude from Harvard, where she was elected one of four Phi Beta Kappa class marshals and was also Phi Beta Kappa (Junior 24), a John Harvard Scholar, and recipient of the Detur and Setchkarev Prizes. She has a Master's from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where she was a recipient of an A. Michael Spence Fellowship and conducted research at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and Stanford Center for International Development.

At Cambridge, Joanna read for an M.Phil in International Relations at Trinity College on a Gates Cambridge Fellowship and set up the Cambridge Society Singapore (now part of the Oxbridge Society) in conjunction with Cambridge's 800th Anniversary Capital Campaign. She is very grateful for the generosity of both the Gates Trust and Trinity College, and has served as regional coordinator for Hong Kong for the Gates Cambridge Alumni Association, and as a committee member for the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Hong Kong.

By drawing upon my fieldwork on ‘forced migration’ in a city in Southeastern Turkey, I am writing about militancy, activism, and expertise in a context where practices of peace-making and guerilla warfare overlap.

I am now entering the third and final year of my PhD studies with Professor Christine Holt. My project is focused on elucidating molecular processes involved in the development of nervous system. After my PhD, I will be returning to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to finish the remaining two years of medical school. My long-term interest is in nervous system damage and repair.

I obtained my MPhil in Economic (Option B) in Cambridge after graduating from the University of Manchester with a first class degree in Economic Science and Manchester School Prize. Having spent a year on the programme of PhD Economic in Cambridge, I switched my academic interest to economic history. Now my research area is the occupational structure of British female employment during the second half of the nineteenth century.

As an Egyptian-Dane, I have always been fascinated by the contentious issue of the Islamic nature of Egypt. This drives my ambition, as a historian, to shed light on the immense role of Islam in modern Egypt.

My specialisation in modern Egyptian history at the University of Copenhagen has expanded my understanding of the challenges Egyptians have faced for the last century, including questions concerning identity, political Islam and the relationship between religion and state. The debate on the Islamisation of the state or nationalisation of Islam has often been lacking a solid scholarly foundation. I will address this gap by looking at legal codification and, in particular, the project of legal Islamisation after the 1970s. This period of Egyptian legal history has been understudied in comparison with the 19th century which marked the beginning of Egypt’s encounter with Europe.

Pursuing this PhD in Middle Eastern Studies will ultimately shed light on a chapter of legal modernity that was especially formative for the way Islam and state interact in Egypt and beyond today. As a first-generation academic, I am honoured and humbled to be joining such an outstanding community and learn from my fellow Gates Cambridge Scholars.

Previous Education

University of Copenhagen Arabic/Middle Eastern Studies 2018
University of Copenhagen Arabic/Middle Eastern Studies 2016

My studies examine the conflict between international trade and environmental laws regulating the use of global resources such as fisheries. My research draws on professional experience with country delegations to international organisations and with bodies such as the International Law Commission, and academic interest in global governance, theories of democracy and sustainability. I will continue to work in this field as an academic and consultant at the conclusion of my Gates Scholarship.

Michael J. Young is an M.D. candidate at Harvard Medical School and a Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University. His current research examines the ethical dimensions and philosophical framework underlying standards of care in medicine and public health. Michael is also a co-investigator in the Central Nervous System Metastasis Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in collaboration with the Broad Institute, studying genomic drivers of brain tumors. Michael completed an M.Phil in philosophy from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College) as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, where he focused on philosophical issues relating to medicine and the mind. His work has appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, AJOB Neuroscience, Critical Care Medicine, Nature Immunology, Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics, BMC Psychiatry, and Medicine, Healthcare and Philosophy.