Directory

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

Previous Education

United States Military Academy B.S. Civil Engineering 2002

I am interested in language and on the preconditions of effective communication. My PhD research is aimed at investigating the non-strictly-logical aspects of meaning. I employ experimental methods developed in cognitive psychology to test claims about the evolution and function of the language processor. I hope that my research will give some new insight about how the mind works and that it will have practical implications in cases of clinical linguistic disorders.

I am ecstatic to continue studying antigenic variation among dengue viruses as a PhD student in Zoology. I had the privilege doing an MPhil last year in the the Department of Zoology at Cambridge, with research at the NIH in the USA, and will continue working with both groups during the PhD. We use a technique called antigenic cartography to make ‘antigenic maps’ that depict the relationships between viruses and antibodies. I hope to build on our preliminary findings for dengue viruses to develop a more complete picture of the antigenic variation within and between dengue serotypes.

In my time at Cambridge, I hope to contribute to our understanding of the molecular events required to generate a remarkably complex adult body plan from a single cell embryo. Such developmental processes are often found to be deregulated in cancer, and thus research in this area promises to provide insight into cancer etiology and reveal opportunities for therapeutic intervention. I would like to express my profound gratitude to the Gates Trust for enabling me to pursue this opportunity of a lifetime.

Broadly speaking, Scott is interested in the nature and measurement of human intelligence. Specifically, he is interested in the relationship between working memory and intelligence, artistic creativity, and the implications of theories of intelligence for special populations (gifted, learning disabled) as well as those undergoing psychotherapy.

My first taste of astronomy was at a public star party just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As soon as I glimpsed through the observatory telescope to see the colorful bands and bright moons of Jupiter, I knew that I would dedicate my life to understanding our universe and how it came to be. I earned a B.S. in Physics and a B.S. in Astronomy & Astrophysics at the Pennsylvania State University. There, I discovered my calling in the form of quasars - supermassive black holes consuming matter at the centers of galaxies. I continued my studies in the MASt. in Astrophysics program at the University of Cambridge. My doctoral research will aim to find high-redshift quasars and study the Epoch of Reionization, a period of great change marking the end of the Cosmic Dark Ages and the beginning of the universe we are familiar with today. I hope that my work will advance our understanding of the history and evolution of the universe. Alongside research, I will work to improve accessibility and inclusivity in my field through advocacy and outreach as a Gates-Cambridge Scholar and member of the Institute of Astronomy. I am thankful for this opportunity, and I look forward to being a part of this incredible scholar community.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Astrophyics 2022
Pennsylvania State University Astronomy and Astrophysics 2021
Pennsylvania State University Physics 2021

Previous Education

University of Dehli (Lady Shri Ram College)
Oxford University

Travis Kavulla is the vice chairman of the Montana Public Service Commission, the state's energy, telecommunications, water, and transportation regulator. In November 2010, he was elected by a 28-point margin, the largest of anyone facing an election contested by both major parties since the modern commission’s inception in 1974. He was re-elected in 2014 in an uncontested race.

Commissioner Kavulla recently concluded a term as President of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC). He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute and also serves as co-chairman of the Northern Tier Transmission Group (NTTG) Steering Committee.

Commissioner Kavulla previously has led Western state utility regulators’ efforts on the creation of efficient wholesale markets, emissions allowance trading, and the reliability of the bulk electric system.

Previous to his election to the Public Service Commission, Mr. Kavulla worked as a journalist, writing on political economy, culture, and development. His by-line has appeared in publications as diverse as the Wall Street Journal, Catholic World Report, the Dallas Morning News, and the Journal of Eastern African Studies, among many others. Mr. Kavulla has also served as associate editor for National Review, the biweekly magazine founded by William F. Buckley, Jr., and has worked as a professional editor of media ranging from blogs to books. Mr. Kavulla has received a number of honors, including being awarded a year-long, full-time writing fellowship in 2008 from the Phillips Foundation.

Mr. Kavulla received his bachelor’s in History at Harvard University. He is a fourth-generation Montanan.

Sara Kazmi is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a scholar, translator, and performer whose work takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of anticolonial, left, and oppositional literary production in the Global South. Sara focuses on the Panjab region, and more broadly, on South Asia and South Asian diasporas, combining methods in literary studies, performance, and history to focalise how marginal and vernacular writing engages planetary debates around questions of decolonisation, Marxism, and revolutionary transformation. In addition to her work as a scholar, Sara is a performer and student of Indian classical music. She blends ragas with folk tunes in renditions of protest music from South Asia, some of which are archived at mein.beqaid (I, uncaged) on Instagram. She also sits on the editorial committee for Jamhoor, a critical left media organization that amplifies marginalized and progressive voices from South Asia. Prior to joining the University of Pennsylvania, Sara was a Postdoctoral Fellow at LUMS University in Lahore, Pakistan. She received a PhD in Criticism and Culture at the Department of English, University of Cambridge, an MA in South Asian History at SOAS, London, and a B.A. (Hons) in Humanities from LUMS University. Her academic work has appeared in the South Asia Multi-disciplinary Journal (SAMAJ), the Journal of Socialist Studies, and South Asia Chronicle, and literary criticism and long-form writing has been published by Herald, Dawn Books and Authors, The News on Sunday, and Poetry Birmingham, with translations in Jalada Africa and Pancham.

Previous Education

Lahore University of Management Sciences
School of Oriental and African Studies