Directory

I grew up in Davidson, North Carolina and Williams College. As a Gates Scholar, I completed an MPhil in European Literature and Culture, concentrating on Early Modern German. As an undergraduate, I spent the past two summers researching eighteenth-century ceremonial diplomatic encounters between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires. This research challenged essentialized views of the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Central Europe and contextualized today’s debates about European culture. At Cambridge, I continued to study the early modern world, focusing on early modern German literary and historical representations of diplomatic friendship.
After my time at Cambridge, I worked in educational publishing in Boston and New York, as well as in public health during the Covid-19 pandemic. I now live in Berlin, Germany, where I work in communications and strategy for Ekin Deligöz, a representative in the German parliament and the Parliamentary State Secretary (deputy minister) of the German Ministry for Families, Seniors, Women, and Youth.

Born in Philadelphia, Amanda Dennis studied modern languages at Princeton and Cambridge Universities before earning her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was awarded a Whited Fellowship in creative writing. An avid traveler, she has lived in six countries, including Thailand, where she spent a year as a Princeton in Asia fellow. She is the author of the novel, Her Here (2021), and of the book of literary criticism, Beckett and Embodiment (2021), and she has written about literature for the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and Guernica, as well as for a number of academic books and journals. She is assistant professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Creative Writing at the American University of Paris

Links

https://www.aup.edu/profile/adennis
https://www.amandadennis.net
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.dennis.9638
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-dennis-6a560013

Continuing from my MPhil research in sustainability and urban planning, my current PhD work seeks to determine the direct impact of Urban Agriculture on an individual’s ecological footprint. In the wider world of art and design, theatre sets, the Jesus May Ball, the culinary arts, and my own sketchbook make my days in Cambridge a true joy.

Atticus DeProspo, United States, received his B.S. degree in Industrial & Labor Relations from Cornell University, graduating with honors. He was a member of the Cornell Varsity Men's Soccer Team for four years, helping them win an Ivy League Title. Previously, he worked in Florida and Washington D.C. as an intern for Senator Marco Rubio. Atticus also interned at the Supreme Court of the United States for Justice Sotomayor. Atticus was a member of the inaugural class of the Schwarzman Scholars Program, where he graduated with a Master’s degree in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. Atticus was selected as a Gates-Cambridge Scholar, where he graduated with an M.Phil. degree in Criminology from the University of Cambridge. Atticus received his J.D. from The University of Alabama School of Law. He clerked for Chief Judge L. Scott Coogler on the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Atticus also clerked for Judges Peter Hall and Steven Menashi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Currently, he works as an associate at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C.

Previous Education

Cornell University

Links

https://www.wc.com/Attorneys/Atticus-DeProspo
https://www.linkedin.com/in/atticus-deprospo-b27560228?challengeId=AQFmP10UHNL8sAAAAYc4BDztW10bFedB98prwDzszCvj2ncGX4c8O3FGZSNuw

Rafael Dernbach is a researcher and writer concerned with the social and medial constructions of futures. Currently, he acts as Director of Emerging Narratives at fischerAppelt advisors. Previously, he was a research associate for Futurium, House of Futures in Berlin. As a Gates Scholar, he received his doctorate for research on anticipatory realism in post-cinematic art at the University of Cambridge in 2018. He held visiting researcher positions at Princeton University and Freie Universität Berlin. He has also teaches media theory and design theory at universities and academies.

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafael-dernbach-ph-d-10a9161a3
http://www.rafaeldernbach.com
http://twitter.com/rdernbach

My undergraduate research was in the area of transport in polymer membranes. I have worked mostly with nonselective membranes which either facilitate fast mass transfer or act as barriers. In Cambridge, I continued this research by working with Dr. Geoff Moggridge on selective nanoporous films made from block copolymers.

I am currently studying bioengineering with a concentration in cellular and tissue engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. As an undergraduate student, I have engaged myself in neuroscience and bioengineering research, which has fostered my passion to study ocular pathology in the scope of neuroscience. During my MPhil in Medical Sciences at Cambridge, I will study the aetiology of glaucoma and the mechanisms of cell death, which can provide further insight into developing novel therapeutic options. I am honoured and excited to join the dynamic group of scholars that make up the Gates Cambridge community.

Previous Education

University of Illinois, Chicago

I grew up in Quebec and lived in New Mexico, before studying comparative politics at Harvard and working in China. At the Judge Business School, I researched the psychology of social networks and their impact on leadership, innovation and performance in organizations. I then went on to work as a strategy consultant for Roland Berger and cofounded Fluent.ai, a speech recognition startup.

Links

http://linkedin.com/in/desruisseaux

My experiences studying Medical Anthropology, Global Health, African Studies, and Gender Studies at Princeton expanded my understanding of social inequality and its impact on sexual health around the world. Through my ethnographic projects studying pregnant women during the pandemic and women using doula services, I recognized the lived experiences of women seeking healthcare amid various barriers. The chance to better these women's health options inspires me to continue my studies. After working on health equity in the US, South Africa, Vietnam, and New Zealand, I am eager to begin my MPhil in Health, Medicine, and Society at Cambridge to understand the social factors of health and wellbeing in a new cultural context. In my dissertation research, I will explore access to sexual health education for people with disabilities, both in the Cambridge community and internationally. After my time at Cambridge, I intend to attend medical school and practice as a women’s health physician. I am so honored and humbled to join such an outstanding community and learn from my fellow Gates Cambridge peers.

Previous Education

Princeton University Medical Anthropology 2021

I am very grateful to have received a Gates scholarship to start my PhD research in Social Anthropology this year. I will be preparing for fieldwork next year in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). There I will research the niche in trade between Kinshasa (DRC) and Brazzaville (capital of Republic of Congo) over the Congo River, a niche completely dominated by disabled traders. I am specifically interested in how the traders manage to turn their marginalised social position around in this African border zone. I will be looking into how the niche originated, which survival techniques the disabled use to keep it alive, and what the future of the niche will look like. After my PhD I hope to continue research through the international academic community and to use my findings in development cooperation.

Previous Education

United States Naval Academy Oceanography 2009

Hailing from India, I pursued BSc Honors in Chemistry from St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi, where I recognized the importance of ‘excellence’ and ‘service’. There I got the opportunity to intern at the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) and the University of Cambridge to computationally analyze carbonic anhydrase inhibitors and biomolecules respectively, which opened to me multiple avenues to perform experiments sustainably! To delve deeper, I moved to the University of Oxford to pursue MSc in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, where I am currently working on theory and software development. During my PhD at the University of Cambridge, I will work under the supervision of Prof David Wales and use energy landscape exploration methods to analyze stapled peptides, which possess the potential to be used as novel therapeutics for aberrant protein-protein interactions and in the treatment of cancer, cardiovascular and infectious diseases, etc. Concurrently, I aim to promote science communication between scientists and non-scientists by providing a common platform. I feel blessed to be a part of the passionate Gates Cambridge community as it will empower me to realize my goal of positively impacting global healthcare!

Previous Education

University of Oxford Theoretical Computational Chem 2023
St Stephen's College, University of Delhi Chemistry 2022
Bal Vikas School Physics, Chem, Maths, IP, Eng 2019

My PhD research traces the history of prevention science an interdisciplinary field that emerged in the US during the 1990s in an effort to prevent young people from developing a range of problems later in life. I am interested in the paper practices, institutional infrastructures and trans-disciplinary networks of expertise that gave rise to the production of new kinds of knowledge about youth, risk and the future in the US from roughly the 1960s until the present.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge History and Philosophy of Sci 2015
Columbia University Neuroscience & Comparative Lit 2012

In 2009, I joined the University of Cambridge as MPhil student in Engineering for Sustainable Development. During the year I mainly focused on sustainable applications for the developing world. After the MPhil, I worked as consultant for the UN – International Fund for Agricultural Development as Water Management specialist, working on small-scale irrigation and water development projects in India, Bangladesh and Ethiopia. I re-joined the Centre for Sustainable Development in 2012 as PhD student. My research focuses on resource (i.e. nutrients, water and energy) recovery and reuse in agriculture for low-income countries and from the perspective of business models. The main aim of the research is to understand the environmental/health risks of RR&R and necessary mitigation strategies. The research is part of a joint IWMI/WHO research project.