Directory

At the University of Cambridge, I studied the political economy of health. During my PhD, I studied the link between privatisation policies and increased alcohol-related mortality rates. I have worked in health and healthcare research since I completed my studies because I am passionate about health and healthcare and I believe that we can use our achievements in science and technology to improve people's health all over the world. As a Gates Cambridge alumna, I strive to make people believe they can create change and improve not only their own lives but also the lives of others.

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/darja-irdam-b76365158

Before coming to Cambridge for MPhil Development Studies, I was working as a Civil Servant in Pakistan - involved in multilateral negotiations at the WTO and part of the Trade Policy formulation team. After completing my PhD in the Political Economy of International Trade, I am now working at Pakistan's Permanent Mission to the World Trade Organisation in Geneva.

I grew up in the small city of Aligarh in India and studied at Aligarh Muslim University where I became politically involved in issues of gender equality. I took up Women’s Studies as one of my subsidiary subjects. My interest in the area led me to a Master’s in Gender, Media and Culture at the London School of Economics and Political Science. I then worked as Equality and Diversity Adviser at the London School of Economics and Political Science for five years while also writing about gender and race issues as a freelance journalist for The Guardian, New Statesman, Open Democracy, etc.At Cambridge, my PhD (2015-19) explored gender and class formations in urban India through an ethnography with young lower middle class women employed in services, such as, in shopping malls, cafes, call centres, and offices in Delhi. Following the PhD, I was selected for a Junior Research Fellowship (2019-22) at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, where I developed a new project on gender, digital technology, and the future of work in India. In January 2022, I was appointed Lecturer in Work and Employment Relations at the University of Leeds, where I continue to work.

Previous Education

London School of Economics & Political Science (Un
Aligarh Muslim University

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/asiya-islam/17/462/106
http://twitter.com/asiyaislam

I grew up in Pretoria, South Africa but studied and worked in Johannesburg. Between 2008 and 2011 I was involved in multi-country research on democracy and governance in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2011 I read for a master’s degree in African studies. My dissertation analysed the fall of a dominant political party which had governed for twenty years. I am interested in democratisation in Africa particularly with regard to the efficacy and integrity of elections in dominant party states. My doctorate will examine the relationship between voters and political parties to understand what draws voters to political parties. The influence of government performance, ethnicity, clientelism, leadership and ideology will be considered to determine if voters are making rational choices when they vote or if they are motivated by deeper, intrinsic ties to political parties instead. I hope to write a book on elections in Africa to stimulate debate on how citizens use their right to vote.

Noah Isserman is an academic, strategist, and entrepreneur focused on the financing and future of social goods. He is Visiting Assistant Professor-elect of Business Administration and Social Work at the University of Illinois, where is founding director of two campus-wide programs: Social Innovation (socialinnovation.illinois.edu) and the iVenture Accelerator for top student startups (iventure.illinois.edu). He is also one of four Core Committee members working on the design and rollout of a new $50M Design Center for the campus.As a consultant, Noah has worked on five continents, independently and with Common Ground Consulting, with dozens of organizations and boards on strategy, process, and messaging As an entrepreneur and CEO, Noah has helped build and sell two profitable enterprises — WholeData, LLC, acquired by the Upjohn Institute, and MAStorage, Inc., — both of which deliberately generated social and commercial value. Noah marries his professional experience with broader theory in academic research and teaching. He has designed and delivered courses at the Universities of Cambridge and Illinois at the undergraduate, MBA, MSt, and MTech levels. Noah’s work and research in civil society has been funded by the US State Department and Aga Khan Foundation, among many others, and has been recognized by more than a dozen awards and fellowships. He holds degrees from Amherst College (cognitive neuroscience) and Cambridge (economic geography).

Links

https://business.illinois.edu/profile/noah-isserman
http://www.noahisserman.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/isserman

I’m from Valdivia, a small city in southern Chile, and since I can remember I have been interested in history and music. For this reason, studying musicology has been a real gift in my life. I have been quite involved in conservation and heritage in Chile, restoring historic instruments and also founding and developing archives and music collections. I have written various books and papers on the way identity and music have been relevant for the development of different communities in my country. For my PhD in Cambridge I hope to write on the changes in cultural life from colonial to republican times in South America, with a special interest in the Viceroyalty of Peru and how European-style music was rethought at this time in such a different place from where it was created. Much of this music has never been heard before, being buried for centuries, so it is always very exciting to find and rediscover old scores for the first time, studying them and the musicians behind the notes.

What processes were involved in the evolution of the modern human brain and cognition? How can we study such processes? The material culture studied by archaeologists to understand the cognition and mind of early humans are the art objects left by people of early cultures. Some of the earliest examples of art belong to the European Upper Palaeolithic- a culture spanning between 30,000 to 10,000 years. The human subject in this art has been a controversial topic due to its supposed poor quality of execution and has led to numerous debates about the dichotomy observed in the graphical depiction of animal vs. human subject. Human figure is one of the fundamental subjects in modern society as it is one of the first figures drawn by children. Therefore what can we learn about the perceptual processes of the Palaeolithic people with regards to the human form. Was this schemata stable for the entire Upper Palaeolithic as proposed for the animal figure or did it change from phase to another?

I currently work in the Government & Health Industries practice at Strategy&, where I focus on international development projects.

My PhD research was concerned with the role of health workers, as street-level bureaucrats, in the day-to-day delivery of the Community-Based Health Insurance Scheme in Ethiopia, and how implementation can often diverge from programme design. This study contributes to understandings about how individuals navigate health insurance programmes, how front-line stakeholders interpret policy directives, and how authorities respond to emerging and shifting implementation challenges.

Previous Education

University of Newcastle Upon Tyne
University of Cambridge

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/momodou-jack-phd-34451588

While an undergraduate at the University of California, Irvine I have become fascinated with understanding the relationship between human health and disease, both at the population and molecular levels. As we arrive at the precipice of breakthroughs that will revolutionize how we mobilize the forces necessary to fight disease, I want to advance that process, actively aiming to not just treat cancer but also to understand it. I plan to combine my interest in cancer and the immune system to increase knowledge of how immunotherapies leverage the body’s natural defense mechanism and spur the development of personalized combination treatments. Perhaps the most striking place to make these discoveries is at the University of Cambridge working with Dr. Klaus Okkenhaug, where I will pursue an M. Phil in Biological Sciences. This opportunity builds upon my previous experiences working in the PI3K/mTOR field toward a deeper analysis of the molecular mechanisms that promote the formation of diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). I hope my research will lead to a greater understanding of the mechanisms that influence the development of cancer and elucidate possible targeted therapeutics to combat the disease. As a future physician-scientist, I’m honored to join the diverse Gates Cambridge community and to work together towards improving the lives of others.

Previous Education

Saddleback College
University of California Irvine

I recently graduated from the University of Virginia with concentrations in physics and computational materials science. At Cambridge I will be applying computational methods to the study of molecular recognition and multicomponent mixtures in Professor Daan Frenkel's theoretical chemistry group.

I am a biochemistry student at the University of Washington and am sincerely honored to be selected as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Raised in a German-Iranian household near Seattle, I developed a deep appreciation for cultural identity, global perspectives, and bridging differences to solve complex problems.I work as a researcher to understand mechanisms underlying cardiometabolic disease, as an EMT providing care to underserved communities, and as a public health advocate focused on harm reduction and increasing access to lifesaving resources.At Cambridge, I will pursue a Master in Philosophy in Population Health Sciences. I aim to further my expertise in epidemiology and public health strategy, equipping myself with the tools to address the most pressing health challenges of our time, including addiction, chronic illness, and emergency response.Afterward, I hope to earn a Doctor of Medicine (MD), bridging clinical expertise with population-level interventions to drive systemic improvements in healthcare accessibility and outcomes.I’m grateful for this opportunity, incredibly excited to learn at Cambridge, and committed to using this gift of education to improve lives.

Previous Education

Everett Community College College In The High School
North Seattle College Emergency Medical Technician
University of Washington Biochemistry

Although born in India, I spent most of my life in Bahrain and Dubai. This made me aware of the inequalities between oil-rich regions like the Middle East and resource-constrained developing nations, in energy security and access to clean technologies. Thus, I developed a passion for energy and environmental sustainability. I knew that I would need a diverse skill set to tackle such complex, multifaceted issues. This is why as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I studied both Mechanical Engineering and Economics with a minor in Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences. By engaging in activities ranging from honors research to environmental consulting, I gained exposure and worked on technologies including (1) Organic solar cells (2) Low-cost home energy monitors for smart, efficient grids and (3) Novel energy storage solutions such as printed batteries and high-capacity Lithium-ion cells. During my MPhil in Energy Technologies at Cambridge, I hope to gain more in-depth technical insight into various energy systems and strategies to combat climate change, spanning everything from carbon capture and abatement to renewable power generation. As part of my thesis, I also plan to specifically research how optimization principles and control theory may be applied to energy harvesting, storage, and distribution. I am honored to be a Gates-Cambridge scholar and grateful for this opportunity to contribute towards more efficient, affordable and globally accessible sustainable energy sources.

Previous Education

University of California, Berkeley

Links

https://www.facebook.com/vineetjnair9
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nairvineet9

What differentiates the truly great people from the rest? I believe it is standing tall in the face of adversity. Growing up in one of the biggest cities (Chennai) in India, I saw the struggle my parents faced to provide a quality education to me. Despite never having been to a university, they strived hard to provide for my university education. To say it in the words of my mom "As humans we don't live forever, why don't we make something that lasts forever". This is my motivation for research. My quest took me from India to the Netherlands and then to UK. Here at Cambridge, I would be working on the entanglement between consciousness and attention. I aim to create a cognitive neuroscience inspired model on the deficits of attention during transitions of consciousness. Further to apply them in patients with attentional deficits like Stroke to predict their recovery prognosis. During my PhD, I would like to combine my expertise in clinical (Maastricht University), cognitive (Radboud University Nijmegen) neuroscience along with my knowledge in mathematical methods (University of Oxford) to provide a holistic approach to the problem in question. I'm truly humbled at this award and would like to thank my friends, family and my teachers for supporting me through thick and thin. I look forward to join the vibrant Gates Cambridge community and contribute my part to this noble cause.

Previous Education

Radboud University Nijmegen
Technical University of Eindhoven

I first developed a passion for the study of human origins and genetics in high school in Westchester County, NY. I received a BA in Evolutionary Biology of the Human Species at Columbia University and at Cambridge will be pursuing an MPhil working in Dr. Toomas Kivisild’s laboratory. For my MPhil project, I will be using bioinformatics to search identify gene variants that may have entered the human population from interbreeding with archaic hominin species, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. Specifically, I am looking for such variants that may have conferred adaptive advantages in particular environments and were thus selected for in some populations. In addition to my passion for this research, I have also always advocated for social and political engagement and hope to continue do so at Cambridge and in the future.

Originally from Bangladesh, I graduated from the University of Sydney with a double degree in Science/Arts, reading Chemistry, Government and International relations, and Political Economy. During my Honours year, I examined the extent to which microfinance (small loans) empower women to achieve development outcomes. My degree in Cambridge was an interdisciplinary professional training and research combination course in development and economic policy. At present, I am pursuing PhD at LSE under the supervision of Professor Naila Kabeer. My primary research interest is in gender policies and economic development.

I studied Philosophy and Theology at the University of Edinburgh before coming to Cambridge to take the MPhil in Theology, Religion, and Philosophy of Religion at Clare College. My PhD research investigates Karl Barth’s engagement with Ludwig Feuerbach’s atheist theory of religion. I am also currently studying Anselm of Canterbury's 'ontological argument'.