Directory

My research at Cambridge will examine how the social sciences have created and constrained political and economic agency, particularly during the 20th century. In the past, I have done research on particle physics, the classification of government documents, and the history of prediction. I have also developed and taught courses to middle schoolers on poetry and the history and politics of New Haven. My ultimate goal is to become a history and social studies teacher, and to incorporate the lessons of the humanistic study of science and technology into secondary school curricula. To that end, I am also interested in the future in studying and developing pedagogical techniques that inspire laughter, critical thought, and political engagement. I grew up in New York City and often miss riding its subways when I’m away.

After two years studying survival skills and cultural mentoring at Wilderness Awareness School near Seattle, WA, I completed a degree in anthropology at McGill university, focusing both on African indigenous groups and Canadian First Nations. At Cambridge, I hope to study how hunter-gatherer children learn the skills needed to survive in their environment, in order to infer how our human ancestors did so as well. I hope that this research culminates in a better understanding of the evolutionary roots of learning, in order to help make changes to the schools that serve children in the western world, and in indigenous communities alike.

My work focuses on the connections between human and physical landscapes. My past research began at Oberlin College and continues today at the University of Oxford, always supported by my extraordinary mentors. With their guidance, I examine the nexus of climate, extractive industries, and the human communities most directly affected by environmental change. In the past several years, I have studied these transformations in rural Mongolia, expanding and curtailing opportunities for nomadic herders living in the Gobi Desert. To date, my research has been published and featured in several academic and popular outlets, including The Washington Post. At Cambridge, I will be studying many of these same socioecological systems, but in the context of the Arctic. By focusing on the world’s fastest-warming region, I hope to examine the (un)natural laboratory of melting glaciers and retreating sea ice. While these changes send some communities into retreat, they also create new opportunities for developers and extractors to prospect for wealth in Earth’s last terra incognita. This new frontier offers a glimpse into a future where climate change doesn’t cause the end of the world but the beginning of a new chapter of socioecological history. I hope my research will shed light on this future to inform policy and innovation that helps vulnerable communities cope with the pressing demands of a changing climate.

Previous Education

University of Oxford Env. Change and Management 2017
Oberlin College Politics

I grew up in a small town in North Carolina, after which I studied anthropology and global health at Harvard College. Combined with my interests in cultural psychiatry, history of medicine, and East Asian studies, I wrote a senior honors thesis unpacking the history, present-day implications of, and lived experiences behind women’s engagements in the plastic surgery industry in South Korea, highlighting how colonial and imperial influences gave way to the normalization of aesthetic standards rooted in racialized and gendered notions of “beauty,” and discussing this phenomena’s implications in South Korean discourses around health, gender, citizenship, and geopolitics. I plan to continue this line of research through Cambridge’s MPhil in Multi-Disciplinary Gender Studies, as I apply a more rigorous understanding of feminist theory and methodologies to my work. More generally, I am passionate about devising more culturally and gender inclusive ways of understanding mental health, fighting for equity in health and education access, and contributing to more diverse approaches of studying—and teaching—the social sciences, especially in its application to health and education.

Previous Education

Harvard University Anthropology 2022

Julia completed a PhD Engineering in 2012, which focused on innovative financing solutions for global health. Stemming from her PhD research at Gates Cambridge, she originated, raised and deployed the world's first $108mm Global Health Investment Fund with Lion's Head Global Partners and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The purpose of the fund was to provide financing to advance the development of drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and other interventions against diseases that disproportionately burden low-income countries. Before coming to Cambridge, Julia qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG's Canadian biotechnology practice and undertook projects for a variety of organisations including GAVI and WHO. During her time in Cambridge, Julia co-founded the African Innovation Prize, served on the University Council, and initiated and convened the Cambridge Global Health Commercialization and Funding Roundtable. Julia is currently based in London's White City biomedical campus as Co-Founder & CEO of Micrographia Bio, a deeptech bio company focused on applying machine learning to bioimaging to accelerate drug discovery.

Born in Hong Kong and raised in Canada, I began my research career in the Applied Fluid Mechanics Laboratory at UBC, using advanced laser-based diagnostics to investigate the air-blast atomization of viscoelastic liquids. Since moving to Cambridge in 2006, I have been searching for ways to use self-excited hydrodynamic modes in fuel injectors to weaken thermoacoustic instabilities -- a historically recurring problem now plaguing the next generation of low-NOx gas turbines.

My goal is to deliver credible research evidence to influential government, business and community stakeholders, in the right way with the right people and at the right time, achieving positive impact for people and planet.

I lead the Research, Analysis and Modelling team that provides strategic direction on research capabilities at Climateworks. I work closely with program delivery teams to provide independent and objective advice on research practice, and the interpretation and translation of analysis relating to decarbonisation. I also support coordination of staff capacity and professional development of analysts working across Climateworks, and host forums for sharing best practices.

As well as working part-time at Climateworks, I am a parent to three young children.

Previously, I managed the research and engagement activities of the Built to Perform initiative in close collaboration with industry and government. This resulted in a once-in-a-decade reform of building energy regulations, and to my recognition as Young Energy Efficiency Professional of the Year at the 2018 National Energy Efficiency Awards.

I also led Reshaping Infrastructure, which transformed previously fixed mindsets around the influence of physical infrastructure on greenhouse gas emissions and is catalysing policy reforms by governments across Australia. During this time I led the expansion of Climateworks' cities, transport and infrastructure workstream, which included making the strategic and business cases for a new work program and supporting relevant fundraising and recruitment activities.

I led a multidisciplinary team of around a dozen people to deliver the Climateworks Centre Decarbonisation Scenarios 2023, which is now the preeminent evidence base cited by the Australian public and private sectors for setting emissions targets in line with the Paris Agreement.

I hold Bachelor’s degrees in engineering and mathematics from the University of Melbourne and a Master’s degree in sustainable development from the University of Cambridge.

Previous Education

University of Melbourne

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/msli9

The childhood mystery behind my grandparents’ “magic” to keep annoying insects away from plantations with used mouthwash sparks my curiosity for life science. As a girl raised in an underdeveloped region in western China, I am the fortunate one of many who continues chasing my dream during my bachelors in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Being exposed to interdisciplinary subjects ranging from molecular biology, immunology to computational structural biology enables me to appreciate the beauty of the human body. In particular, I am deeply fascinated by the elegant complexity of the physiology and pathology of the nervous system.During my PhD studies in Medical Science, I’ll seek to disclose the intriguing mechanisms underlying neurological disorders, and focus on designating therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative diseases. With my effort, I am also hoping to promote equal access to science and innovation for individuals. It is a great honour for me to be selected as Gates Cambridge Scholar and I am looking forward to bettering society with the world’s bright minds.

Previous Education

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Biomedical Science 2021

My research respondents in less-privileged areas and groups in China and Southeast Asia share a common desire: a longing for a life elsewhere. For many of them, education is regarded as a vital means of upward mobility, even if moving up usually means moving away and shifting one’s identity. How can we understand mobility and identity change, and what are their benefits and downsides? My previous research disentangled the intricate power dynamics in shaping different educational mobility in Asia. Building on this, my Ph.D. project investigates the emotional imprint of education-related mobility and elucidates the mechanisms of mobility in a transnational context composed of uneven modernities and entangled histories. My research training in politics, area studies, and sociology from Peking University and the University of Cambridge allows me to examine both structural forces and individual agencies in this era of social transformations. With support from the vibrant Gates community, I hope to use the insights of the social sciences to better understand identity-related struggles and foreground the diversity of the world.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Sociology 2021
Beijing University (Peking University) Politics and IR 2020

For my PhD study, I will conduct a case study of Chinese migrant workers in Kawakami village, Nagano prefecture. In specific, I will explore the framework of this form of migration, examine migrant workers’ conditions and expectations, and elucidate the effects of this migration. I will engage in participant observation in both the Japanese and Chinese communities of Kawakami village, conduct narrative interviews with the villagers and the migrant workers, and conduct expert interviews with employers, village heads, neighbourhood associations, recruitment agencies, NPOs, and other key persons involved. In doing so, I hope to acquire a comprehensive understanding on the working and living situations of migrant workers in Kawakami village, and gain an insight into the impacts which might be brought to both the Chinese workers and the local Japanese community.

Reid Lidow served as Executive Officer to the Mayor of Los Angeles. In this role, he provided strategic counsel to Mayor Garcetti and ensured the execution of his day-to-day goals. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Reid led the writing team behind the Mayor's nightly briefings. Before this, Reid worked for Gordon Brown on a range of initiatives – from encouraging countries to deliver an inclusive and quality education for all children to the campaign against Brexit. Reid completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Southern California where he double majored in International Relations and Political Science. He was awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship in 2014 and earned an MPhil in Development Studies from Queens' College, Cambridge. Reid continues to work with Gordon Brown on projects exploring global governance and nationalism. He is also a student at Yale Law School.

Previous Education

University of Southern California 2010

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/reid-lidow-ba8998291

Growing up in Israel, I have always been fascinated by prisons: what is their purpose, do they “work”, and what is life like for those who inhabit them. Throughout the past number of years, I have been fortunate to meet with prisoners in various contexts – whilst in prison, as a researcher, a teacher, and a fellow student (google ‘Learning Together’!), and upon their release as a counsellor in a hostel. These experiences proved deeply meaningful to me, and have reinforced my desire to contribute to knowledge creation which can inform policy, and ultimately aid those entangled in the criminal justice system and their families. Whilst undertaking the MPhil in Criminological Research at Cambridge, I focused on forms of care, support, and friendship among prisoners - a topic which I intend to explore further during my PhD. My research will include both female and male prisoners, and will examine the meaning and structure of friendship between prisoners and how does friendship impact on the flow of power on the wing. Since completing my MPhil, I have been working as a Research Assistant at the Institute of Criminology here in Cambridge. I am excited and honoured to be joining the Gates Cambridge community and working with others committed to social justice.

Previous Education

Bar-Ilan University
University of Cambridge

I am a first-year medical student at Harvard Medical School. I completed the MPhil program in the History and Philosophy of Science during my time at Cambridge. I previously worked in the human rights field in Eastern Europe, and conducted research at the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University.

I am tremendously excited to study at Cambridge as a Gates Scholar. I'm grateful to be in a place with such rich academic tradition and with so many brilliant minds. I'll be working with Dr. Nigel Slater in the Cambridge Unit for Bioscience Engineering (CUBE) studying responsive biopolymers.

I believe that the University of Cambridge, given its prestigious history in the training of biomedical researchers, would be the perfect setting for me to gain more research skills and experience in the field of multidrug resistance in cancer. In the long term, I intend to be actively involved in biomedical research in the context and setting of the population of a developing country, like the Philippines, as well as collaborative studies with my contacts in Australia and in the UK.

Having studied History as an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, I strongly believe that knowledge of the past is key to building a better tomorrow. History bridges the gaps of time, space and culture to expose the complexities and contradictions of human nature, teaching us valuable and relevant lessons about ourselves and our world. It is my belief that an MPhil in World History at Cambridge will not only deepen my exposure to global historical diversity, but will also allow me to become an agent in championing and spreading such diversity. A Singaporean by birth, I hope in my postgraduate dissertation to explore the myriad social, political and cultural representations of Peranakan women, a unique ethnic group at the crossroads of Chinese and Malay cultures that has often been ignored and downplayed in the existing historiography. It is my hope that my research will not only empower women as social and historical agents, but also preserve and shed new light on modern Singapore's rapidly vanishing heritage. Indeed it is because of my desire to make a difference that I am honoured to be joining the Gates Cambridge family, an international community that constantly strives to better the world we live in.

Previous Education

Oxford University