Directory

Previous Education

San Diego State University MA in Geography 2003
San Diego State University BA (hons) in Geography 2001

Dr Eric Jensen is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, where he teaches on research methods, media audiences and social change, and principles of public engagement with science. Eric has conducted evaluation studies at the National Gallery (London), Imperial War Museum, London Zoo, British Museum, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, University of Cambridge Museums, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Cheltenham Science Festival and Cambridge Science Festival (UK), and many other informal learning institutions, as well as commissioned research for UK government bodies, including Defra. His research has been published in dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles and books, including journals such as Nature, Visitor Studies, Public Understanding of Science, Conservation Letters and Conservation Biology. He has two forthcoming books with Cambridge University Press (‘Making the most of public engagement events and festivals’ and ‘From conservation education to public engagement with wildlife conservation’), and a research methods textbook just published by SAGE entitled 'Doing Real Research'. He has a PhD in sociology from the University of Cambridge.

Links

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/jensen
http://warwick.academia.edu/EricJensen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-jensen-15756b3

Born and raised in Denmark and having lived a year in the US, I moved to England to study Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge as an undergraduate student. After a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, I developed a passion for neuroscience as a Janelia Undergraduate Scholar in the US, where I studied how fruit flies navigate. I therefore decided to pursue a PhD in neuroscience, where I will make a move to slightly larger organisms to tackle some of the mysteries of the brain in the Cambridge Department of Engineering. Working in the Computational and Biological Learning Lab alongside researchers in both machine learning and computational neuroscience and drawing on the expertise of the Cambridge neuroscience community more broadly, I aim to improve our understanding of motor learning using tools from dynamical systems theory and control theory. Improving our knowledge of the motor system will help us further understand how we interact with a complex environment, while advances in basic neuroscience can also drive advances in more applied fields, such as artificial intelligence and clinical neuroscience.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Computational Biology 2019
University of Cambridge Natural Sciences 2018

My PhD dissertation consisted of essays on financial markets. I would like to thank the Gates Trust for making my research possible.

I have always had a fascination for how ‘education’ is designed. But it was an unlikely success story from North India that brought this diffused interest into sharp focus in the form of child-centric education. The story was that of an NGO running non-formal (alternative) schools for children living in slums. Every year, its makeshift schoolrooms would see child labourers become advocates for completion of schooling, the ‘reverse-education’ of illiterate parents through their children, and students outperforming their peers upon entering formal (mainstream) schools. The principle at the heart of this NGO: child-centricity.Across the country are many such scattered initiatives solving globally-prioritised problems of access, retention, and quality that nations have grappled with for decades. Studying similar efforts so as to identify patterns in their success could reveal how schools may be better designed to serve children from low-income families, with the particularities of their needs and circumstances.My PhD research will compare how non-formal and formal schools empower such children, identifying the factors that influence their academic, social, and economic agency. Holding potential solutions to the policy-practice gap in India and wider developing contexts, this research will be a step towards my hope of helping to pave the way to more child-centric, context-sensitive education systems that better serve all by serving those most at risk.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Education (EGID) 2020
The University of Edinburgh Social Policy (with SPS) 2019

My career goal is to become a linguist who can view language teaching from the perspective of a practitioner and meanwhile, a practitioner who would like to see language teaching through a research lens. My broader research interests cover cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, applied linguistics, neurolinguistics and cognitive science. My more specific interests within linguistics include motion event typology, language and thought, universal versus language-specific influences in L1 and L2 acquisition, and semantics-syntax interface in motion discourses. Over my career, I did extensive research in the field of linguistics and cognitive science with particular reference to the relationship between language and thought as reflected in the specific domain of spatial expressions and conceptualisation.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge PhD (MPhil in the first instance) in English and Applied Linguistics 2009
Peking University MA English linguistics 2003

I developed a love for neuroscience while studying at Pomona College. Through various research projects, I explored several neurobiology topics during my undergraduate studies. As an HHMI EXROP Scholar, I investigated the neural circuitry of the pain pathway in the spinal cord at Harvard Medical School. During my third year as a visiting student at Oxford, I contributed to the structural discoveries of a novel synaptic formation protein complex involved in autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia. In my senior thesis, I examined the role of a neuroendocrine enzyme in peripheral ganglion formation at Caltech. As an aspiring neurosurgeon-scientist, I hope to understand the mechanisms of regeneration in the brain after neural damage. While much current research focuses on neurogenesis, to functionally recover the brain after trauma and illness, remyelination is key. In my PhD, I hope to profile neural-glial communication in health and disease and understand the role of myelin using the optic nerve as a model.

Previous Education

Pomona College
University of Cambridge

My interests lie in the crisis in Spanish politics, society and identity that begins after the loss of the last remaining colonies in 1898. They also lie in the ways in which we as Spaniards can form a modern conception of what being Spanish means. This new conception should come from a re-evaluation of the Spanish liberal tradition and of its relationship with those of England and the United States. For all these purposes, Ramiro de Maeztu is ideal: of the generation of intellectuals of 1898, and all the way until the Spanish Civil War, he was the one most interested in the Anglo-Saxon world. He was very concerned with the institutional and cultural problems of Spain, and for a while tried to apply the English model to them. Maeztu can help us understand why Spain devolved towards the gradual breakdown of institutions and the radicalization that led to the civil war, instead of taking the path of progressive and consensual reforms of the Anglo-Saxon model.

My passion for building bridges combines my academic interests in structural engineering with my love of water and the hope I find in our human ability to overcome physical barriers to build integrated communities. After my bachelors in Civil Engineering, I started a social enterprise producing ISSB bricks in Zambia following my work in MIT’s International Development Lab. After returning for a Master in Structural Engineering, I worked with NGOs in Bolivia and the Philippines where engineering solutions targeting neglected poor communities could alleviate poverty and reduce casualties from natural disasters. After working for an engineering firm in Washington DC, I returned to the Philippines on a Fulbright scholarship to improve indigenous housing to withstand typhoons. My course at Cambridge University will build on my international engineering experiences to support my mission of bridging the gap between engineering solutions and the people who need them most around the world.

Previous Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Masters Structural Engineering 2010
Massachusetts Institute of Technology BSc Civil Engineering 2006

I have always admired the incredible resilience, adaptability, and complexity of life. While studying biological engineering and electrical engineering & computer science at MIT, I started to think of nature itself as a master engineer, spending billions of years perfecting the mechanisms that have sustained life. Working at the interface of biology and electronics allows for powerful treatments that can address serious gaps in medicine. For my research in bioelectronics, I plan to develop medical technology for targeted drug delivery to the brain. This approach opens up a myriad of applications—improving treatment for brain cancers, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and neurodegenerative diseases. I look towards building networks of problem solvers as a Gates Scholar to adapt medicine around the world.

Previous Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Biological Engineering 2021

I was raised by my aunt and uncle in a small town in the northeast corner of Tennessee. Throughout my childhood, I developed a growing interest in the world beyond my tight-knit community. I tailored my undergraduate studies to create an interdisciplinary education that explored subjects in international politics, language-learning, economics, world history, and human rights. During my undergraduate years and subsequent experiences as a Gilman scholar in Chile and a Fulbright grantee in Galicia, Spain, I deepened my understanding of the crucial role that education equity plays in society and the economy. As a first-generation student, I understand firsthand the transformative potential of education in personal and professional growth. Through research and classroom instruction at Cambridge, I aspire to delve into the development and implementation of policies that advance equity and inclusivity within educational systems. I am deeply honored to become a part of the Gates Cambridge community and am excited about collaborating with other young minds committed to driving global change in their respective fields.

Previous Education

Middle Tennessee State University Global Studies 2020
Middle Tennessee State University Spanish 2020

Following completion of the Part III Maths programme at Cambridge, I worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm. In 2008, I enrolled at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, working towards a PhD in policy analysis. Upon completion of the PhD in 2013, I remained working as a mathematician at RAND to develop new methods for long-term decision-making under deep uncertainty. Applications are typically related to climate change adaptation, ranging from flood risk management and water economics to renewable energy policy and life cycle assessment. My work is highly interdisciplinary, incorporating economics, statistics, engineering, operations research, and decision analysis. Most notably, I have developed the model of flood risk and economic damage used by the state of Louisiana to evaluate the benefits of hundreds of protection projects for their 50-year, $50 billion Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast.

Currently, I am an assistant professor of industrial engineering and political science at Purdue University, where I was part of the university's Building Sustainable Communities cluster hire. I also retain an adjunct mathematician posting at RAND Corporation as part of my continuing flood risk management work in Louisiana.

Previous Education

North Carolina State University B.S. Mathematics 2003

My name is Donielle Johnson and I am from Alexandria, Virginia. I recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania where I studied psychology and the biological basis of behavior. At Cambridge, I am pursuing a research MPhil in medical science. My research looks at synaesthesia in adults with high-functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome.

I was born in South Africa in 1994, as the country transitioned into an independent democracy. Issues of systemic inequality have shaped the way I engage with the world. I studied an undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town. There, I became passionate about teaching through the Thethani Debating League, coaching debating to high-school children in under-resourced schools around the Western Cape. I also fell into and in love with the discipline of archaeology, and synergized the two to think critically about the past and present in southern Africa.In 2016, I returned to my home town of Johannesburg to study an Honours degree at the University of the Witwatersrand. I worked to better understand concepts of monstrosity through the paintings of the San. My Masters explored the frontier of the Northern Cape province, challenged by marginal aridity and harsh conditions, low population, vast distances, and historical poverty and socioeconomic disparity. This research has directed my PhD, which will explore pastoral transhumance and sustainable land use in arid regions, in a context of colonization in frontier spaces. I hope to extend my research to interact with modern issues of climate change on a global scale.

Previous Education

University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Archaeology 2020
University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Archaeology 2016

Dr. Matthew Kuan Johnson works at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and theology on topics related to ethics, empathy, embodiment, and the emotions. He earned his Ph.D. in Moral Philosophy earlier this year from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar, and also holds an MPhil in Social Psychology from the University of Cambridge (with high distinction) and a B.A. in Cognitive Science from Yale University (magna cum laude). Previously, he was a Contributing Scholar at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University, and has taught in the University of Cambridge’s Philosophy and Psychology Departments.

Earlier this year, he wrote the target article for a special issue (on Joy) of the Journal of Positive Psychology:
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rpos20/15/1?nav=tocList

My PhD project involves imaging live cells at high resolution. I am attempting to see features the size of nanometres, approximately 10,000 times smaller than a human hair. To achieve this goal, I am working with a relatively new technique called Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy (SICM). SICM is specifically designed to image soft surfaces in salt buffer solutions. I am also working on extending this capability to apply localised forces to cells and monitor how they react. This project is especially exciting to me because it involves biology, chemistry, physics, and electrical engineering.