Directory

My curiosity about how people think and behave evolved into a desire to study the brain, which I explored as an undergraduate at Vassar College. Fascinated by the prospect of beginning to understand the neural basis of psychiatric disorders, I explored the field after graduation in the lab of Elizabeth Phelps at New York University. I obtained a compelling sense of how animal studies can be translated into human neuroscience to uncover the roots of mental illness, and became inspired to pursue a career as a psychiatrist and researcher. I have completed a substantial portion of my MD degree at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, which I will finish after Cambridge, before pursuing specialization in psychiatry. During my PhD I will integrate pharmacological and neuroimaging methods to examine the influence of the neurochemical serotonin on emotional and behavioral flexibility. Serotonergic drugs are among the most common medications I will prescribe yet the precise role of serotonin in mental illness and its remediation is not completely understood. Complementing my MD training with PhD training at Cambridge will optimize my ability to increase communication between neuroscientists and psychiatrists. The Gates Cambridge Scholarship will make me a more impactful physician – helping patients beyond those who enter my office – by advancing our understanding of mental illness, and working to counter a formidable disease burden costly to individual sufferers and to society.

Previous Education

Vassar College
Cooper Medical School of Rowan University

I was born in the United States but moved back to South Korea after a few years, before finally coming to the UK. I am currently in my last year of my Natural Sciences at Cambridge degree specialising in Chemistry.Growing up, I was fascinated by the insects and birds I would see whilst hiking in the mountains in and around Seoul. Throughout my school life, this wonder and curiosity I had for the natural world evolved from the macroscopic to the microscopic – the fundamental chemical reactions that drives everything. Pursing my interests in chemistry led to my involvement in the Chemistry Olympiads, where I represented the UK in the International Chemistry Olympiad for two years. During this time, I began to appreciate the importance of organic synthesis, especially in the development and production of pharmaceuticals. For my PhD, I will be investigating new reactions and new reactivities in the context of biological systems. By explicitly targeting biomolecules, the aim is to not only discover and optimise relevant reactions but also expedite the process of new chemistry being used in therapeutic applications to improve and save lives.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Chemistry 2022

Originally from the sprawling metropolis of Daphne, Alabama, I studied biology at Harvard University. There, I worked in a structural virology laboratory, rationally designing immunogens for ssRNA viruses (primarily SARS-CoV-2, dengue, and influenza). In my PhD, I hope to leverage translational immunology to combat one of the most under-recognized public health threats in the world: agro-industrial chemical pollutants.

In my graduate studies, I aim to develop active and passive immunotherapies targeting these persistent organic pollutants. Initially, I will investigate this question in the context of the acute toxicities of pesticides, a major health concern in rural areas. However, I hope to demonstrate that these methodologies are applicable to broad ranges of acutely and chronically toxic pollutants, ranging from agricultural chemicals to ubiquitous flame retardants, plasticizers, and surfactants which impose tremendous burdens on global health.

Beyond the lab, I love to play music, write, and get outside as much as cell cultures will allow. I am exceptionally excited to grow while at Cambridge as a researcher, individual, and member of our global academic community!

Previous Education

Harvard University Biology

During my undergraduate and graduate studies at Makerere University in Uganda, I was fascinated by the gap between the literature we were taught and the literary texts that had currency on the Ugandan cultural scene. These texts were produced by an emerging generation of writers whom my university professors knew so little about and had so little interest in, yet these writers and their writing fraternities constituted the most vibrant literary ecosystem that resonated with contemporary publics. These were the writers dominating shortlists of literary prizes in the region. They associated themselves with non-academic, non-commercial literary organisations – LINGOs. I intend to use my PhD to explore the underbelly of this network of literary value in Africa by examining the institutional logic of these literary organisations in light of their posture as expressions of literary activism. By theorising literary activism in a LINGO framework, my PhD project shall help inform publishers, literary award organisations, writers and academics about the emerging literary enterprise in Africa. It will also help demonstrate how the LINGO framework is essential in reconfiguring cultural discourses and creating new spaces for free expression.

Previous Education

Makerere University Literature 2021
Makerere University Education - English Major 2016

I grew up as a first-generation immigrant in California before attending the University of California, Berkeley to study Computer Science and Linguistics. As a non-standard dialect speaker, I have seen first-hand how globalized communication has intensified pressures to convert to specific languages in exchange for economic reward. While getting my bachelors, I was exposed to natural language processing and its capacity to make information and tools more broadly accessible by allowing interactions with technology to take place in human languages. At the same time, I noticed that the field still primarily focuses on a small set of languages. My goal is to make natural language processing equally functional for all languages, in all their variations, to prevent a further loss of linguistic and cultural diversity. Specifically, I want to create natural language interfaces for computational systems so minority language speakers can use them without altering their method of communication.

Previous Education

University of California, Berkeley Computer Science, Linguistics 2022

Dr Vijay Kanuru is a leading nanomedicine inventor and a prolific nanotech innovator turned entrepreneur, who is on a mission to conquer lethality of cancers with advanced bio-nanotechnologies and artificial intelligence. He spearheads a highly interdisciplinary translational clinical research work in order to commercialize next generation revolutionary nanoparticle medicine for the advanced cancer care, cancer prevention and early stage prognostic cancer treatments. He has made pioneering contributions in developing over the counter therapeutic grade oncolytic nanoceuticals, clinical onco-nutrition and disruptive pharma food products which has made a difference to thousands of lives including cancer patients . He is committed to education,mindfulness and innovation as he believes these three elements are critical for human advancement and environment sustainability.

Previous Education

Stanford University Professional certificate in "sustainable energy conversion and storage"
University of Cambridge PhD in Chemistry

Links

http://www.oncocur.in
http://www.drvijaykanuru.in
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vijay-kanuru-883aa735

Dr Martin Kaonga is the Director of Science and Conservation in Cambridge, UK. At A Rocha, he heads projects on international conservation policy. He received a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of Cambridge, and has worked at the University of Zambia and Natural Resources Development College, Lusaka.

I studied medicine at the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Government Medical College and trained as a doctor at the Sassoon General Hospitals in Pune, India. I hold an MPH degree in epidemiology from the University of Texas at Houston in the US, where I pursued graduate research training in genomics at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. I received a PhD in genetic epidemiology from the University of Cambridge in the UK in 2017, as a Gates Cambridge Scholar and as the first Homerton College Junior Research Fellow in Clinical Medicine. I was subsequently awarded a Future Leaders Fellowship by UK Research and Innovation in 2020, enabling me to establish a research group at the University of Bristol that uses inherited genetic variation to investigate the causes and correlates of tumour genomic features with the aim of informing the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of common cancers.

After graduating from Barnard College in May 2011, I moved from New York City to Cambridge to start my MPhil degree in Astrophysics. My time here has been wonderful, and I am so glad for the opportunity to stay on for the PhD. I work at the Institute of Astronomy, under the advisement of Andy Fabian. Specifically, I am looking at observations of X-ray variability in accreting black holes systems, in order to understand more about the geometry and dynamics of these extreme environments. In addition to my research, I have enjoyed getting involved in astronomy outreach events at my department, and am continually impressed and inspired by the curious Cambridge public. Apart from astronomy, I am completely smitten with the Cambridge music scene, and have also taken up badminton. I look forward to my next three years in Cambridge.

The knowledge in the fields of engineering, economics and management I will acquire while at Cambridge, I aim to apply in forming environmental policies that will ensure a sustainable future for the coming generations. Working both in the developing and developed world I aim to obtain as diverse a work experience and as broad a cultural background, becoming thus a leading figure in my vocation.

I completed my BSc and MSc in Biomedicine at the University of Southern Denmark, where I developed a great fascination for neuroscience. Therefore, I chose to conduct my BSc thesis in a neurobiology lab working on a treatment for stroke. During my MSc degree, I had the good fortune to study at both UCSD and in Portugal. Following this, I decided to spend a year gaining additional research experience. I came to Cambridge in July, 2015 to work as a research assistant in Prof. David Rubinszteins lab. Here, I had the opportunity to combine cell biology with neurobiology and learned that understanding cell mechanisms creates options for treating severe diseases. Currently, there are no effective treatments for neurodegenerative disorders. During my PhD, I will focus on the cellular degradation mechanism, autophagy. Induction of this pathway has the ability to clear the toxic aggregates that are the hallmarks of neurodegeneration in disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. I hope that this will bring us closer to treating these devastating diseases that leave individuals impaired and dependent. I am excited to undertake my PhD in such a dynamic and innovative environment and to join the diverse and compassionate Gates community.

Previous Education

University of Southern Denmark

I am fascinated by bridge structures since they form the linchpins of any rail or road infrastructure network. It always astonishes me to see that more than half of the bridge failures in the world are due to a single cause called 'scour'. My main goal at Cambridge was to tackle this cause. Under the supervision of Professor Campbell Middleton, I developed a new vibration-based approach for monitoring bridge scour. We validated the feasibility of this technique with an experimental programme involving advanced geotechnical physical modelling and a six-month field test at a bridge in Bradford UK. This Ph.D. project was nominated for Digital Initiative of the Year at the 2020 British Construction Industry Awards, Highways UK Intelligent Infrastructure Competition 2020, and The Engineer magazine Collaborate to innovate awards 2020.

After my PhD, I worked as Lecturer at University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka for 2 years. During my time in Sri Lanka, I had the chance to form a collaboration between researchers from Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Moratuwa and engineers from Access Engineering PLC to introduce fibre optic infrastructure monitoring technology to Sri Lanka.

I currently work as a Senior Engineer at WSP in the UK, a world leading management and consultancy services firm that advises on the built and natural environment.

During my time in Cambridge, I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the Gates-Cambridge community of passionate future global leaders who took up some of the most challenging research and other projects with the hope of benefiting the masses.

Previous Education

University of Moratuwa

Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, I graduated with a B.S. in biomedical and mechanical engineering from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. At Yale, I was actively involved in biomedical research and have worked on projects ranging from tissue engineered blood vessels to improving catheter design. In order to achieve my career goal of being in a leadership position in a bioscience company, I intend to combine advanced technical instruction in biomedical engineering with preparation in the business and managerial skills necessary for such a position. Cambridge's MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise perfectly integrates this technical biomedical science with an invaluable business curriculum.

During my PhD, I explored autistic-like traits in bilingual and monolingual children, as well as aspects of their cognitive and figurative language development. Following the PhD, I joined the University of Leeds as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. During the post doc, I worked on the Quantifying Bilingual Experience (Q-BEx) project, where I was exploring the documentation of bilingual experience in children with the aim to inform research, education, and speech and language therapy practices. Currently, I am a Lecturer in Language and Communication Sciences at the University of Essex.

Previous Education

Oxford University
University of Montenegro

I grew up in North Carolina and pursued a BA in history at Stanford University. Most of my historical work focused on the intersection of early modern science and colonial ventures, but some time away from college working in the labor movement and studying the housing crisis refocused my attention. At Cambridge, I will be studying the confluence of two major social trends: the recent rise of short-term gig work, and the decades-long increase in the number of unhoused people owing to rising housing costs, stagnating wages, and austerity measures. Alarmingly, and contrary to popular belief, an increasing number of unhoused people work and still can't afford rent. I plan on conducting field work that sheds light on unhoused labor in the UK, its representation in popular media, and its connection to changes in the welfare state. Ultimately, I'm interested in studying the long-term history of economic exploitation through the interaction of housing and labor markets. I believe there is no well-functioning democracy that does not ensure housing for all.

Previous Education

Stanford University History 2022

As an investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker, my work has sought to spotlight social justice and human rights issues. For the last two years I have worked as as a multimedia reporter and the creative director of the Huffington Post’s long form magazine Highline. There, I covered major global and American issues from ISIS and the refugee crisis to police brutality, corporate corruption and sexual assault. At Brown University, I studied politics, film and journalism with a focus on East Africa culminating in my documentary, I Married My Family’s Killer, on intermarriage in post-genocide Rwanda. My degree in International Relations at Cambridge will examine early interventions and crisis identification, specifically investigating the case of Burundi. Through my research I will seek to understand incentives for preventative actions that could ultimately help to deter humanitarian crises. With this degree and my experience in multimedia journalism, I plan to help governing bodies make informed choices that protect civilians and promote long-term regional stability. I am thrilled to join the diverse and expert minds of the Gates community.

Previous Education

Brown University