Directory

Marie Kolkenbrock is a Branco Weiss Fellow in the Department of German at KCL and a Trinity Hall Alumna (PhD 2014). Originally a scholar of Viennese Modernism, she has recently started to branch out into the fields of comparative literature, cultural theory and intellectual history, and is currently working on a cultural history of the concept ‘distance’ in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her first monograph Stereotype and Destiny in Arthur Schnitzler’s Prose was published with Bloomsbury in 2018. She also is the co-editor of the forthcoming Special Issue of German Life & Letters: ‘Primary Rejections: On the Politics and Poetics of Refusal’, which is due to come out in January 2021.

Links

https://brancoweissfellowship.org/fellow/kolkenbrock.html

I completed my undergraduate and post-graduate medical training from India, and received a Commonwealth Scholarship to study MPhil (Epidemiology) in Cambridge in 2006. I was awarded the Gates Cambridge Trust scholarship for my PhD in Cardiovascular Epidemiology (2008-11), and was subsequently appointed as an NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Preventative Cardiology at St George's, University of London (2011-15). This allowed me to simultaneously complete my clinical training in Cardiology (London Deanery), followed by subspecialty training in interventional cardiology. Currently, I am working as a Locum Consultant Cardiologist at St George's Hospital, London, and continue to undertake active clinical and epidemological research.

I obtained my MSc in Biology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands before attending the University of Cambridge, where I completed my PhD in Biological Anthropology in 2011. Subsequently, I was a Junior Research Fellow at Homerton College and a Post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Archaeology & Anthropology at Cambridge. In 2014 I took up a Post-doctoral position at the University of Zurich. In 2020-2021 I was a Lecturer in Primatology in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. Since 2021, I am a Professor in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

My research applies an interdisciplinary approach to investigating the evolution of tool use. Complex technology is a defining trait of our species. Human technological innovations have reshaped our planet and changed the impact of evolutionary forces upon our lives. Despite the enormous significance of human technology, the evolutionary origin of this complex use of tools is not well understood. By studying humans’ closest living relatives, the great apes, I hope to identify the processes driving the use of technology across ape species and, in turn, shed light on What makes us human?

Previous Education

Utrecht University M.Sc Biology 2005

I am a young geneticist who is ambitious about improving healthcare and stratified medicine. At the age of 16, I attended to United World Colleges of Atlantic, an institute with a mission to use education as a force to unite people, nations and cultures for world peace and sustainable future. While at UWC, academically I became interested in studying disease genetics due to its potential to improve the lives of others. Thus, I studied BSc Human Genetics at UCL, where I developed an interest on the genetic basis of complex diseases. Afterwards, I studied MPhil in Genomic Medicine at Cambridge University as a Gates Scholar. During my master's, I worked at Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute under Prof Zeggini's supervision on two complex disease bioinformatics projects where I worked with large datasets including UKBioBank. For my PhD, I will be studying the rare and low-frequency variants underlying diabetes using data from several biological levels under the supervision of Dr Langenberg. I am very intrigued about this project addressing the knowledge gap in complex disease genomics, given its potential to improve healthcare and stratified medicine. I am very excited to be a part of the influential Gates Cambridge community again.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Genomic Medicine 2018
University College London Human Genetics 2017

As an undergraduate at Bowdoin College, I have sought to understand why religion, politics, and violence so often entangle one another. My work to date, including documentary profiles of Latine immigrants in the restaurant industry and LGBTQ+ activists in the fight for same-sex marriage, has taken a constructive approach. I aim to balance ever-churning bureaucratic mechanisms with the deeply-held lived experiences of communities across the world, pairing academia with the sometimes messy formation of equitable policy. After spending a year interviewing correctional chaplains across the country, my current Honors research is an ethnographic analysis of how religion can promote agency, or expedite restriction, in American prisons. At Cambridge, I am pursuing an MPhil in Theology, Religion, and Philosophy of Religion with Dr. Ankur Barua to explore how clergy and religious organizations might ameliorate electoral violence and communal conflict in Northern India. Research aside, I'm usually found singing with my A capella group or mentoring ESOL high schoolers. I am excited to learn among the broad, forward-looking community of Gates Cambridge scholars.

Previous Education

Bowdoin College Religion, Government 2023
CIEE Study Abroad Spanish, Religion 2022
Harvard University Political Communications 2017

I began my career as a software engineer working at Amazon.com. I returned to academia in order to study ways to improve the correctness of computer programs, which has undoubtedly become important in an age where mission-critical software is pervasive. I am currently finishing a PhD in Computer Science, and will soon begin a Research Scientist position at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (NYU). The Gates scholarship has provided me with aunique opportunity to study theoretical computer science in Cambridge, among many leaders in the field. My thesis is on techniques for automatically analyzing computer programs, using mathematics to prove their correctness.

I am a professional biophysicist working in the San Diego biotech sector. After graduating from Caltech in 2006, I attended the University of Cambridge for a year as a Gates Scholar (Churchill College) where I studied x-ray crystallography in the laboratory of Prof. Ben Luisi. I later completed my doctoral work at Stanford in the laboratory of Prof. Steven Block. I am now working as a scientist at NAT Diagnostics, a startup focused on developing new point-of-care technologies for rapid detection of infectious disease.

How is it possible that just a large number of molecules and the interaction between them facilitates something as complicated as me writing this question? Or in the big picture: life in general?
My fascination with this thought has always aroused a great curiosity about molecular sciences in me. In order to tackle this question in a more directed way, I studied biochemistry in Bielefeld, Germany. I am grateful to have received a good basis for molecular life sciences research during my undergraduate degree there.
In order to find out more about photosynthesis, the chemical reaction that enables life on this planet, I went to Cambridge for a Master in Biological Sciences. Throughout this research project I have been investigating the function of an enigmatic protein, that seems to be involved in high light stress resilience in plants and algae. During my PhD I aim to fully uncover the processes this protein is involved in. Additionally, with the support of the Gates-Cambridge foundation, I want to use this fundamental biochemical insight to provide a platform for the engineering of sustainable energy production devices and stress-resistant crops.

Previous Education

Universitat Bielefeld Biochemie 2018

For nearly a decade now, I have worked as a journalist covering issues of social justice, gender and inequality in India. I have journeyed from mainstream English newspapers to rural-women-led media collectives such as Khabar Lahariya; from working in newsrooms with little diversity to working alongside women journalists who not only belong to historically oppressed social groups, but also in previous work lives were migrant workers, agricultural labour, vendors. This was a transformative experience. In 2017, I read for a postgraduate degree in Sociology at the LSE - a discipline closer to my work than previous qualifications in engineering and communications. As Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity at LSE, I am part of a committed global community of activists, journalists, and policymakers at the frontlines of fighting inequality. When I look back, much of my writing has focused on women negotiating, and sometimes, succeeding in improving their life chances while surviving the conjugated oppression of caste, class and patriarchy. Studying these negotiations of mobility that women make every day in the face of intersecting caste and gender inequalities lies at the heart of my doctoral proposal.

Previous Education

London School of Economics & Political Science (Un Inequalities and Social Scienc 2018
MICA, Ahmedabad Communications 2009

Young professional, technologist and entrepreneur passionate about overcoming challenges of global scale and relevance through cutting-edge technologies, effective policy and innovative business models.

I am research student in Philosophical Theology, and my research revolves around the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Friedrich Schlegel, and their reactions to and appropriations of Spinoza, pantheism and a vitalist philosophy of life.

I first became interested in prosthetic heart valves during my final year studying mechanical engineering at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. I had at the time been working full-time for a medical device design and development company and had the great fortune of working with practicing surgeons. This sparked me to study further and complete my Masters in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. My academic interests include novel biomaterials and blood-implant fluid-structure interactions. I continue to be intrigued by the human body and the extent to which medical devices contribute to a better quality of life not only for the individual treated but also for their family and society at large. I hope that my research at Cambridge, designing and developing a growth potential paediatric prosthetic heart valve, will contribute to this field.

I finished my MPhil in Environment, Society and Development at Cambridge last year, and the following three years will see me extending my time here, pursuing a PhD. I plan to study the politics and science of the evaluation and monitoring of payments for ecosystems projects in Europe.

I grew up in Houston, Texas near the Texas Medical Center, and early shadowing experiences inspired me to consider a career in medicine. As an undergraduate at Harvard I pursued my interests in service work and chemistry research. I volunteered with Harvard Undergrads Raising Autism Awareness and began collaborations with Sesame Street, the Boston Red Sox, and the Museum of Fine Arts. In the Nocera Group, an inorganic chemistry laboratory at Harvard, I first worked on quantum spin liquids and later on catalysis. As I developed a love for transition metals, I learned that they play an outsized role in topics ranging from oxygen transport to signaling in the brain. At Cambridge I look forward to studying iron distribution in biological solar cells, which use photosynthetic bacteria to generate electricity from solar energy. This research builds on my previous experience in inorganic chemistry while preparing me for future work with in vivo and human systems. Following a MPhil at Cambridge, I plan to pursue an MD-PhD degree and use inorganic chemistry to address unsolved problems in medicine, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. I feel enormously grateful to join the Gates-Cambridge community and learn from other students whose research questions are inspired by the needs of those around them.

Previous Education

Harvard University A.B. Degree Chemistry 2019

Growing up just outside of New Orleans, the urgency of the climate change issue was instilled in me from a very young age. Interacting with some of Louisiana's first climate migrants and experiencing the effects of increased hurricanes and sea level rise pushed me to further pursue climate science. As an undergraduate studying Environmental Earth Science at Tulane University, I discovered a new lens through which the issue could be viewed and learned about the field of paleoclimatology. During my MPhil in the Physical Geography Department at the University of Cambridge, I seek to better understand the fundamental differences in global-scale warming between three interglacial periods. This research will refine scientific understanding of the forcings and feedbacks involved in global-scale warming and will be used in models that will predict the effects of anthropogenically caused climate change. I’m honored and excited to be joining the Gates Cambrdige community and begin working with my peers to tackle one of the biggest issues facing the world today.

Previous Education

Tulane University of Louisiana Environmental Earth Science 2024

Previous Education

University College London M.Sc General and Medical Microbiology 1997
Lehigh University B.S. Biology 1996
University of Miami