Directory

I plan to specialize in the field of politics and public policies in education, with an emphasis on decentralization, participatory school management and school autonomy policies. I am specifically interested in analysing the multiple ways of civic engagement in local public affairs promoted by such policies. I expect to develop a relationship between academic research and policy making and get involved in high decision making processes in order to strengthen local democratic institutions.

I grew up in Austria, where the formal educational attainment of an individual strongly depends on their parents' education and profession. Education at all levels is not as accessible as it could and should be, and this is most harmful to the most marginalized members of our society. As a German as a second language teacher working with refugees, I have come to understand that accessibility barriers can take many forms, and that what are seemingly traits of individual learners (such as motivation) should be re-examined and understood as systemic accessibility issues.My PhD project will combine gender studies with educational research and social work practice to better understand male refugees' conceptualizations of their plural identities and their language learning motivation. I hope that my findings will contribute to making second language education more accessible and inclusive, and I am honored to be able to carry out this research as a member of the Gates Cambridge community.

Growing up in small-town Germany I developed an interest in foreign languages because I associated with them cultures and places that lay beyond my reach, and which therefore seemed exotic and fascinating. I went on to study general linguistics at the University of Düsseldorf, where I first came into contact with Old English, the language of medieval England before and for some time after the Norman Conquest of 1066. As a consequence of this military and political event, French became an important language in England, replacing Old English - itself the language of previous migrants from the Continent - in some contexts and interacting with it in a way that changed both the French (dialects) of the invaders and the English (dialects) of the conquered. My PhD research is concerned with these linguistic influences, in particular with regard to the orthography and pronunciation of English.Having been a tutor and student representative at my previous university, I am also passionate about widening access to education and fostering community among students.

Previous Education

Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf Linguistics 2022
Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf Linguistics 2019

In undergraduate, I was profiled by CNN; this interview gave me the courage to speak with conviction about my identity and how it relates to my work. I am a foster youth. I am a black woman. I am first-generation. I come to Cambridge not only as an educator but as an activist focused on improving life outcomes for marginalized youth. In New Orleans, LA, I had the privilege to teach. I learned that leading requires learning from those whom you lead. My principal, my students and the community I served, all shaped my perception of education. Together, we developed academic curriculums that reflected student culture, interests and identity. Furthermore, we created an incredible approach to student leadership development. As a result, I won Sue Lehmann, a national teaching award. After leaving the classroom, I moved into teacher leadership development. Through Teach For America, I had the privilege to partner with and manage almost 60 educators. At Cambridge, I will explore research-based methods to democratize education. I believe that schools that function more democratically are better apt to meet the needs and desires of marginalized youth. Such democracy could further translate into improved student behavior, socio-emotional development, and academic outcomes. Words cannot explain how honored I am to join the Gates Cambridge community of passionate learners and ethical leaders.

Previous Education

The University of Alabama

I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and completed my B.Sc. in Biochemistry at Covenant University, Nigeria. My research interest is in the mechanisms that control body weight and how they can be exploited to improve obesity outcomes. Metabolic diseases, like obesity and diabetes, are a significant health challenge affecting millions of people globally. During my undergraduate study, I developed a keen interest in the interplay of biological processes and lifestyle in the pathophysiology of metabolic diseases. Moreover, growing up in Africa where the rates are alarmingly rising with sub-minimal health research output and public policy efforts strengthened my resolve to address these challenges. At Cambridge, I will study the mechanisms by which gut hormones control body weight and blood sugar levels aiming to develop treatments that modulate gut hormone signaling. This fascinates me because these strategies present the most promising therapeutic avenue to combat the obesity epidemic. I hope to contribute to the development of biomedical infrastructure that can alleviate the burden of metabolic diseases in Africa. I am honoured to be part of the Gates Cambridge community and hope to leverage the platform to pursue my goals and impact lives.

Previous Education

Covenant University Biochemistry 2020

I am Research Team Leader at the Center for Environmental and Technology Ethics - Prague (CETE-P) and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences. I work in contemporary philosophy: environmental philosophy, political philosophy and feminist philosophy, with a particular focus on the questions of social transformation. After completing my PhD, I was British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Warwick (UK), EU Maria Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (Denmark) and Assistant Professor at Aarhus University (Denmark).

Links

https://cetep.eu
http://iwonajanicka.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/iwona-janicka-993a4b309

I am South African (with Portuguese heritage) and have lived and worked here for most of my life. Following graduation as a civil engineer, I worked as a consulting engineer in the structural and construction sectors, where a large portion of my work experience was on the design and construction of Africa’s largest and cleanest coal-fired power stations. At Cambridge, I will be undertaking an MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development. My interest in sustainability stems from my enjoyment and appreciation of the natural world as I have always enjoyed camping, hiking and the outdoors in general. This led to a concern for the environment and preserving it for future generations, so that they may enjoy and learn from it as I have. As an engineer, I am intrinsically involved in the effect that human activities have on the environment. This has increased my desire to study the principles of sustainable development and how they can be implemented practically in the engineering industry. I want to learn how to develop solutions that benefit communities and the environment in the long term, but remain financially feasible. The weighty consideration of the sustainability of our engineering activities is especially important in Africa, where many people have limited access to resources, funding and skills. INTERESTS: adventure, camping, scuba-diving, cycling, water-skiing, travelling and exploring new places, baking

Previous Education

University of Pretoria

Tala Jarjour is a scholar of music, religion and anthropology who studies the Middle East and the Arab world. She has a background in Ethnomusicology, Historical Musicology and violin Performance. She is particularly interested in intersections between politics, culture and religious musics in and from the region – especially Levantine traditions such as Christian and Sufi musics. Her research interests include arts and humanities higher education in the Middle East.

As a Gates Scholar and recipient of the Overseas Research Studentship Award Scheme, Tala wrote her PhD on Syriac chant in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Her past and current research examines emotion, aesthetics, modality, identity, minority and ethno-religiosity, society and performance, survival, cultural heritage, nation and power, peace and war studies, as well as migration and integration.

Dr Jarjour held Assistant Professor positions in music and anthropology at New York University Abu Dhabi and the University of Notre Dame where she was also Faculty Fellow of the Kroc Institute of the Medieval Institute, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Previous visiting faculty positions include Yale University’s Music Department and the University of Salzburg. Research positions include Yale University and the Excellence Initiative at the University of Tübingen. She is currently Associate Fellow of Pierson College at Yale and Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London.

Dr Jarjour has worked with and consulted for a number of academic, nonprofit, as well as private and public sector entities in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Middle East. Those include L’Arche, The Clerk’s, Al-Fanar, the Manchester International Festival, the University of Salzburg, and the Vienna Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She has appeared on national and international media such as the BBC Radio 3 and CNN International, and has published articles in cultural media in the Arab world, such as Annahar and Assafir weeklies.

Her book Sense and Sadness, Syriac Chant in Aleppo was recently published with Oxford University Press. For a sample of Dr Jarjour’s academic writings, and contact information, see http://talajarjour.academia.edu/

I am pretty much a journeyman: born in Surabaya, spent my childhood in Madiun, grew up in Batam, completed my high school in Singapore, and studied BSc (Hons) Biomedical Genetics in Newcastle. Along the way, my curiosity for many things has been growing, ever since my parents encouraged me to read a lot: from national newspaper, Tintin series, to literature.During my undergraduate years, I developed strong interest in molecular biology. I was the first Indonesian to be selected by the Amgen Scholars Programme in Cambridge, to pursue a summer research on CRISPR/Cas9 modification. My undergraduate project at Newcastle University, where I managed to define novel interactions between two synaptonemal complex proteins, motivated me even more to embark on a research career.I will work with Dr. Luca Pellegrini at the Department of Biochemistry to investigate the molecular machinery of eukaryotic DNA replication. This may help us to give much-needed details on the fundamental process of genomic duplication and clues on how some genetic diseases arise.I am striving to be a leading scientist who is well-motivated to help the others. My biggest goal is to help my home nation Indonesia. It is a huge country with so many potentials – and I hope to lead and to contribute in the field of medical research.

Previous Education

University of Newcastle Upon Tyne

There is as much poetry in understanding the brain, as there is science. I had the opportunity to pursue both these during my undergraduate degree at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali. After working on Schizophrenia at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, I completed my final year thesis on memory formation at the Indian Institute of Science. My graduate research at Oxford interested me in examining how brain circuits contribute to mood disorders. The ways in which early-life experiences predispose individuals towards mental illnesses require examining changes in a developing brain. In my Ph.D., I hope to explore how such changes in the prefrontal cortex can lead to the early onset of neuropsychiatric disorders, by examining their impacts on behaviours that are commonly dysregulated across these conditions. Through my research, I hope to identify critical periods of development and arrive at a better understanding of specific prefrontal circuits that can be targets of early intervention.

Previous Education

University of Oxford Neuroscience 2023
Indian Institute of Science Ed & Research Mohali Biology 2022

My doctoral research at Cambridge University is in the rapidly advancing field of stem cell biology focussing on understanding the early stages of development of haematopoietic (blood) stem cells. My long-term career plan is to carry out clinically useful research and thus contribute significantly not only to science but also society at large.

Having completed my PhD in Geotechnical Engineering, I'm currently working as Chief Geotechnical Engineer in energy industry.

My Princeton University and Columbia University degrees weren’t the first to teach me that inequity in education opportunities and outcomes is wide-spread, yet poorly-addressed. Writing my college and scholarship essays on my smartphone and having my mother bus me to the best free advanced academic programs available outside my neighborhood taught me that. When coupled with biases in technology that scholars like Ruha Benjamin, Joy Buolamwini, and Timnit Gebru expose, the future of EdTech and its ability to widen educational divides and be complicit in anti-Black racism is concerning. This conviction will guide my Cambridge PhD research as I investigate the use of EdTech applications by out-of-school youth (OSY). In meditating on what I aim to accomplish in the realm of EdTech, I ultimately start by questioning and analyzing how we adapt technology to students’ learning needs, working alongside students to design interventions. Moreover, I will grapple with how education can be made more equitable and how research is more than a distorted reflection imagined by outsiders studying communities unfamiliar to them. Rather, it’s an interrogation of how the Western world relinquishes agency and legitimacy to these communities.