Directory

I graduated with a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2009. Upon graduating, I worked in the Office of Technical Assistance Management at the IMF in Washington DC. I also worked on a UNHCR project on Mapping the Living Conditions of Refugees in Lebanon, before attending Yale University for a specialized Master’s degree in International and Development Economics. Following graduation in 2013, I returned to Lebanon and joined the World Bank country office as a Research Analyst in Human Development. In my three years at the World Bank, I worked on both operational and analytical projects related to the Syrian refugee situation in Lebanon. The former included projects in the fields of social protection and education aimed at mitigating the impact of the Syrian conflict on Lebanon. The latter include a multi-agency study of the "Economic and Social Impact Assessment of the Syrian Conflict on Lebanon” and the “Lebanon Systematic Country Diagnostic”. Between 2014 and 2016, I was also a part-time economics instructor at the Lebanese American University.
I am currently a second year PhD student, and my research focuses on explaining how the Lebanese government and its policies, and the international humanitarian regime govern and manage Syrian refugees and their vulnerable hosts. Another aspect of my research focuses on the type of interaction, and processes of ‘integration’ that have developed in urban settings in Lebanon, between Syrian refugees and their Lebanese hosts as a lived reality rather than an active government policy tied to permanent resettlement and citizenship. Particular focus of my research is on developing an appropriate framework that incorporates different actors in managing and experiencing the Syrian refugee situation in Lebanon, and explaining how they constantly shape and reshape each other.

Previous Education

Yale University
University of California Santa Cruz

As an undergraduate at Princeton University, I became interested in computational cognitive neuroscience and conducted independent research on memory and on cognitive control. Through my research and my courses I developed an interest in constraints in central processing capabilities. My research has focused on the computational tradeoff of learning and multitasking. At Cambridge as a student in the Cognitive and Brain Sciences Unit, I plan to investigate the effects of lesions on the capacity to allocate and sustain attention. I will research whether attentional deficits are due to overattending and thus an inability to switch attention between tasks or an inability to attend in general. This work has the potential to inform our understanding of the mechanisms of sustaining attention and the mechanisms through which we learn how best to allocate attention. My research also has implications for those with attention deficits.

Previous Education

Princeton University

The Gates Scholarship will allow me to establish a foundation in public health that I will later use in Medicine. I am pursuing a medical degree from the United States directly after the program in Cambridge. During medical school I will try to return to developing countries such as India and Nepal in order to establish public health programs. After medical school I would like to work as a surgeon who practices in both the United States and developing countries. I ultimately want to transition from a clinical practitioner into a health administrator in either the public or private sector. I hope to later work with the Gates Foundation in this regard.

Antibiotic resistance is an increasingly daunting global health crisis. As a medical student in Cleveland, Ohio, I frequently helped take care of patients with antibiotic resistant infections, encountering this challenge first-hand. The apparent complexity of this problem compelled me to approach it as a physicist, striving to reduce the complexity of evolution into fundamental mechanisms. I was inspired by the prospect of predicting, and even reversing, antibiotic resistance through rationally designed, evolutionarily-informed therapies. I am ecstatic to have the opportunity to work on a piece of this puzzle during my PhD in Physics at Cambridge. I will join Dr. Diana Fusco's group in examining how evolution acts on short- and long-range cell-to-cell interactions within bacterial biofilms through both simulations and experiments. As an aspiring physician-scientist, I am greatly motivated to carry forward this broad, interdisciplinary approach to further our understanding of microbial evolution and improve clinical strategies for prevention and treatment of antibiotic resistance.

Previous Education

Case Western Reserve University Medicine 2020
Case Western Reserve University Biophysics 2016

Born in Hungary, raised in Austria, and then resident, as a Classics student, in Berlin and in Cambridge, I consider myself multicultural and cosmopolitan in the ancient sense—with a civic duty to all places, regardless of borders. During my studies at the University of Vienna and the Humboldt University Berlin, I became increasingly interested in the literature of Late Antiquity, an age which—with its rapid globalisation, religious conflicts, and intricate identity politics—shows striking similarities to our era. My doctoral dissertation focuses on Heliodorus’ Aethiopica (The Ethiopian Story), the latest ancient Greek novel, which testifies to the cultural complexities of its time: it is a story about race, concealed and unstable identities, sexual and religious purity. My thesis analyses Heliodorus’ sophisticated handling of his readers’ and characters’ states of knowledge and discusses the influence of Late Antiquity’s prominent philosophical and religious movements, such as Neoplatonism and Christianity, on his novel under epistemological aspects. Designed as a narrative puzzle, the Aethiopica offers itself to various—often ideologically charged—modes of reading and thereby celebrates Late Antique pluralism. Believing in the transforming power of humanities, I am confident that my work will shed new light on the history of pluralism and thereby promote a respectful approach to diversity, which is a particularly pressing issue of our time.

Previous Education

University of Vienna
Humboldt University
University of Cambridge

Infectious diseases remain one of the pressing concerns of humanity. I am particularly interested in working to combat them, specifically dengue. The skills I learn at Cambridge will be valuable in optimizing management of the non-profit Dengue Relief Foundation we have established for Latin America and for synthesizing technology transfer with developing world needs. As a medical clinician and scientist, my goal is to tackle these problems from both a clinical and research perspective.

Since beginning my undergraduate studies at UC San Diego, I have completely immersed myself in research and its applications. I trained across diverse labs in psychology and neuroscience in university, and after graduating, I worked at Stanford University for 3 years on a variety of projects. I investigated how brain systems and personal traits are involved in the formation of social networks, and how features of self-regulation can be used to predict positive lifestyle changes for people. I worked alongside companies in Silicon Valley to test mobile app interfaces, provide UX/UI insights, and develop immersive (and enjoyable) VR/AR user experiences.

At Cambridge, I developed new frameworks for the study of mind wandering and spontaneous thought patterns. I also used a mix of qualitative interviews and field study designs to combine insights about how people experience changes in their emotions across time - and how smart technology may predict these patterns and better adapt to user needs.

My goal is to always keep innovating to find new ways of improving people's well-being.

Previous Education

University of California,San Diego

Structural studies of molecular machines and their assembly are my primary research interest. Ever since my Bachelors thesis project at Trans-Membrane Trafficking lab at OIST (Japan), I have been amazed by the tricky membrane proteins and the complexity behind their structural studies. My Masters thesis work at the Bio-membrane Functions Lab in Nagoya University (Japan) involved the functional and structural analysis of a flagellar inner membrane protein from Vibrio alginolyticus. During my Masters, I worked closely with Imada sensei's lab at Osaka University to learn X-ray crystallography. Next, as a summer intern at the Mancini lab at STRUBI (Oxford University), I developed a desire to know more about structural dissection of pathways associated with gene regulation such as Chromatin remodelling and mRNA processing. This led me to pursue my PhD research at the Passmore lab in MRC LMB with a GATES Cambridge scholarship. During my PhD, using an integrative structural biology approach, I unraveled the structural architecture of the eukaryotic mRNA 3' end polyadenylation machinery (https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.43327). I specialise in using a combination of in vitro biochemistry, cryo-EM and NMR to study the structure and dynamics of protein-RNA complexes associated with fundamental cellular processes. I am now pursuing my postdoc research at the Pyle lab, MCDB, Yale University.

Previous Education

SASTRA University
Nagoya University

Martin Davis wrote a book called "Engines of Logic" describing computers and their history. His title is accurate. But it is amazing how phenomena from video games to music engraving software emerge from, basically, physically realised arithmetic (it does, however, make the emergence of personalities from biochemistry seem more plausible). I'm interested in the philosophy of computer science. I am specifically working on mechanised logic: formalising mathematics using computers and, on the flip side, building logical models of computer systems, usually with an aim of improving their safety or security. I believe we can learn a lot about meaning by examining our use of computer systems, but there are many secrets hiding in plain sight.

Mathematics is a language that has redefined me as a person. I look forward to my study at Cambridge and hope sharpen my analytical and mathematical skills.I want to deepen my understanding of areas like algebra,analysis and probability.I am confident that Cambridge will provide me with a conducive atmosphere for my overall growth. I am optimistic that through the mathematical skills that I attain in the next two years,I can make mathematics more fun and appealing to the future generation.

I graduated from Salisbury University where I earned my B.S. in Chemistry with minors in Mathematics and Biology. Graduating from the Bellavance Honors Program allowed me to explore other fields besides the sciences to gain a broader understanding of the world. As a freshman, I spent a semester in Ecuador learning Spanish and volunteering at a boy’s refuge center. By my sophomore year, I was actively involved in research in the organic synthesis of biologically active compounds at my home institution and abroad. My work on antitubercular compounds led to my first authorship in a publication in BMCL. I spent summer 2011 performing research in peptidomimetics at the École Normale Supérieure. In summer 2012, I worked on the synthesis of an inhibitor of a chemical warfare agent at the TU Kaiserslautern in Germany through DAAD-RISE. After earning my PhD in Organic Chemistry, I will pursue a research career in drug development with an emphasis on diseases in underdeveloped countries.

My research interests include the Viking expansion into the North Atlantic region, the applications of soil micromorphology to floor deposits in archaeological settlements, human impacts on landscapes, and the application of geoarchaeological methods to identify seasonal occupation of archaeological sites. My research focuses on testing application of micromorphological analysis of undisturbed floor sediments to detect punctuated occupation and to aid future research on seasonally occupied settlements and enrich our understanding of how past societies used, manipulated, and sometimes damaged their environment.

I grew up just north of Rochester, NY, a few minutes from the shore of Lake Ontario. I've always held a deep commitment to environmental issues such as climate change and particularly renewable energy. As a Gates Scholar, I did the MPhil in Materials Science and Metallurgy, and went on to earn my PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT, where I worked on new materials for photovoltaics (solar cells). I'm currently a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University working on batteries.

Growing up in rural Maryland, I often entertained myself by capturing and raising a menagerie of local animals – minnows, spiders, newts, crayfish, rabbits, frogs, turtles, mantids, ants, birds…My love for wildlife was further enhanced as I read dozens of books by English conservationist Gerald Durrell, whose work inspired me to consider conservation as a career path. With Durrell’s bold, charismatic approach to saving rare animals as something of a guiding light, I studied Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Princeton and conducted research in wildlife conservation. Also in college, my life was transformed as – for the first time – I truly grasped God’s beautiful redemptive narrative and understood its implications for the world and my life. Now, as I pursue graduate training in conservation biology at Cambridge and beyond, I am eager to serve others by bringing both science and faith to bear on some of the most pressing and difficult conservation challenges in the world.

I became interested in the brain and mind when I was diagnosed with epilepsy at age 13. I pursued a BA in Psychology at Ryerson University, where I became interested in the development and treatment of cognitive biases in mood disorders. While volunteering on the Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) Unit of Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, I developed an interest in designing treatments for cognitive and emotional difficulties in individuals with an ABI that account for their unique impairments. To further my knowledge of ABI, I obtained an MSc in Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University. Many people with an ABI have symptoms of depression, but available methods of treating mood disorders such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy fall short because they rely heavily on domains often compromised in ABI, such as mental flexibility, comprehension, and memory. As a student in the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, I will investigate whether depression in ABI can be treated by increasing engagement in positive activities, and whether this treatment can be enhanced through cognitive training to facilitate planning and engagement in such activities. If effective, this research could immediately influence rehabilitation services worldwide.

Previous Education

Ryerson University
McMaster University

Ancient languages are no less fluid than their contemporary equivalents: obscured by the standardisation of most classical texts, the vernaculars of antiquity vary dramatically across time and space, evolving unpredictably and spreading into new regions. My interest in the development of, and interactions between, ancient languages was piqued while studying Latin and Classical Greek at the University of Sydney, and furthered by my graduate studies of Classical Arabic at Charles Sturt University. Through my Master of Philosophy at Cambridge, I researched how language change affected Greek poetic composition, and how Greek and Latin interacted with regional Semitic languages, including Arabic and Ge'ez. I intend to focus my PhD on a particular issue in the diachronic linguistics of Greek: the loss of phonemic accentual pitch, and the development of the modern 'stress' accent. Little explored in modern scholarship, this question is not only important to Greek linguistics, but also informs our understanding of metrical composition in Late Antiquity, and the interchange of linguistic features occurring across Greek's areal spread. I am most grateful to the Gates Cambridge Trust for continuing to support my research.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Classics 2020
Charles Sturt University Islamic Studies 2019
University of Sydney Arabic Language and Cultures 2018