Directory

I feel privileged to be part of the Gates scholar community and will make the most of the opportunities here to learn as much as I can.

Ryan Limbocker is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Life Science and teaches general chemistry. Dr. Limbocker received the Goldwater Scholarship in 2014 and graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Kansas with Highest Distinction, University Honors, and Departmental Honors. He attended graduate school at the University of Cambridge in the Centre for Misfolding Diseases funded by the St. John’s College Benefactors’ and Gates Cambridge Scholarships under the supervision of Professor Sir Christopher Dobson and Professor Michele Vendruscolo. Upon completion of his Ph.D. in Chemistry, he conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University.

In addition to teaching and researching countermeasures and protein misfolding diseases, Dr. Limbocker is a passionate academic mentor. In particular, he actively seeks to help cadets consider, plan, and execute applications for technical, national, and international scholarships and prepare for medical school.

Previous Education

University of Kansas

Links

https://www.westpoint.edu/chemistry-and-life-science/profile/ryan_limbocker
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=N68SyvEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

My research is in developmental neuroscience, specifically on axon guidance. I am studying how extensions from neurons (called axons) find their way through the developing brain and end up on the correct targets. This research may have future implications for brain repair, as neurons introduced into damaged tissue must integrate correctly into the surrounding network.

I grew up in Toronto, Canada and obtained a Bachelor's in electrical engineering from McGill University. During my undergraduate studies, I pursued human-robot interaction and technology ethics research, with a focus on progressing the responsible development of intelligent systems. Through my studies at Cambridge, I intend on deepening my expertise and research experience in the field of artificial intelligence ethics, with an eye towards building practical tools and frameworks that aid engineers and policymakers in understanding the complex interactions between technology and society.

Previous Education

McGill University Electrical Engineering 2022

A lovely place to learn about mice and men and the dissection of both.

Growing up in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, I have spent my four-year University life in Hong Kong. What I benefit most from my undergraduate education is developing my passion towards neuroscience through relevant courses and a project studying how neurons sort out the proteins they produced. I am very excited about starting my PhD study at Cambridge and discovering a world new to me. The project I will engage in at Cambridge with Professor Christine Holt investigates how neurons navigate their way in our brain, focusing on the visual system, without making wrong turns or bumping into each other. This study is useful in curing newborn babies with neural developmental defect and to understand our brain organizations. I certainly hope one day my scientific discoveries can help people in bigger ways. I am looking forward to joining the Cambridge community and meet with all these outstanding Scholars.

Previous Education

Hong Kong University of Science & Technology Bachelor of Science in Biology 2013

As an undergraduate at Princeton, I am majoring in the History of Science and completed the pre-med curriculum. My research interests at Princeton revolve around the medicalization of postpartum depression, the feminist self-help movements who pushed for increased medical recognition of their experiences, and the narratives of women, across time and geography, who suffer from postpartum depression. Through an MPhil in Health, Medicine, and Society at Cambridge, I intend to expand my senior thesis work on organized feminism’s advocacy for medical treatment of postpartum depression, with a focus on how social movements within England influenced the psychiatric treatment of postpartum depression.

Ultimately, I hope to attend medical school and then specialize in the treatment and care of women’s mental health, to honor each woman’s story, including, where relevant, experience with motherhood. I am excited to learn from and with the diverse scholars who comprise the Gates-Cambridge community.

I am one of seven children and attended schools in five different states growing up. I am always look for some competitive hoops; at Princeton, I serve as Captain of Women’s Club Basketball. But my favorite activity is simply to be with people, whether my teammates, the residents I guide as a Residential College Adviser, or the community at the Center for Jewish Life. I am excited to do likewise at Cambridge.

Previous Education

Princeton University Bachelor's Degree in History 2019

I completed my PhD in 2012, which focused on the evolution of Islamist civil society movements in Tunisia and Morocco into pro-democracy political movements (and ended up taking a strong focus on how they responded to the Arab spring given events from 2011 onwards). While in Cambridge, I was highly involved in my college – having served as the Trinity Hall MCR President, rowing in the Women’s First VIII and serving on the committee for Trinity Hall Boat Club. Since completing my studies, I have pursued a career in applied research in international development, most recently joining the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office as a Results & Evidence Adviser focused on Sudan.

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-linn-12b86546

I want to make it possible for everyone in the world to have free access to an effective and enjoyable education.

Currently, I work at Google developing open-source tools to improve online education. I also serve as a director of the Oppia Foundation, a non-profit whose aim is to make it easy for anyone to create and share interactive, learn-by-doing lessons with students around the world.

At Cambridge, I was a cosmology research student at the Dept. of Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics. I enjoyed my work, as I find the Universe fascinating - there is so much we don't know! During my PhD, I worked on investigating certain properties of singularities (points at the 'edge' of spacetime where things break down) as well as the behaviour of various matter components, with an interest in how they might contribute to explaining the dark energy problem (one of the outstanding problems in the field).

My proposed topic, moral dilemmas of contemporary Chinese liberal intellectuals, arises from my long-standing interest. I completed a BA in Journalism in the highest rated institution for journalism in China, Renmin University, and received my Distinction MA in Sociocultural Anthropology at Durham University, UK. Between the two degrees, I have worked as a journalist and editor in Chinese top media organisations for over 11 years. These experiences have granted me first-hand observations, an extensive network analytic skills and narrative approaches. I have written numerous articles concerning the roles and dilemmas of liberal intellectuals, 20 of which were published into my first book, Triste Common Sense (2013). I reckon many ethical paradoxes in everyday life of Chinese liberal intellectuals are largely unheard and untold. By verbalising, representing and analysing their experiences, this project will help us to gain more reflection and recognition on their roles and responsibilities in this era. It will also benefit broader Chinese citizens to get better understandings of the reality of Chinese society, and to take references or inspirations from these intellectuals' choices and struggles.

Previous Education

Durham University Sociocultural Anthropology 2019
Renmin University Journalism 2007

This year I hope to study one of my passions – early American political thought, while making lasting friendships and growing as a whole person.

Over the next year, I will be pursuing research with Drs. David Rubinsztein and Angeleen Fleming exploring the roles autophagy, a cellular recycling process, plays in the nervous system in normal and diseased states. Currently, I plan to work on two aspects of autophagy: its role in the development of the nervous system and its function in clearing protein aggregates. I hope that during my year here, I will be able to contribute to our understanding of the functions of autophagy in the brain.

I am currently studying in the Surface Science Group in the Chemistry Department. The focus of my study is to investigate the ammonia synthesis catalyzed by the compound of FeSx which can be either in the form of nanoparticles or a bulk single crystal (i.e. pyrite single crystal). The aim is to understand why FeSx is able to catalytically reduce nitrogen to ammonia under benign conditions as occurs in extant biology (i.e. nitrogenase) from perspectives of the electronic structure and geometric size and shape. With this effort, it is hoped that a more energetically efficient process for ammonia synthesis can be developed with an aid of optimized biomimetic catalyst.

I'm a master of Biomedical Engineering (BME). I have been studying this major for 7 years. It is a new major emerged in recent years and it employs engineering methodology combined with the knowledge of science, physics and medicine to design various diagnostic and therapeutic medical devices. It's so significant for human health and it is also a symbol of the development level of one country. In the past 3 years, my research mainly focused on rehabilitation devices. We developed intelligent walkers to help patients with disabilities walk normally. In the future, my job will concentrate on clinical neuroscience which will be more useful in clinical practice. After, I will study to develop a new software, called ICM+, which could collect data from bedside monitors to help doctors make an assessment as soon as possible. It bridges the gap between lab and clinical application. My motto is "Cease to struggle and you cease to live".

I have been interested in the application of science and technology to solve global problems, particularly in energy. Despite been one of the most abundant and clean resource, solar energy composes only a negligible fraction of our energy supply today largely due to its high-cost. A promising approach to tackle this problem is to make solar cells using novel materials that are significantly cheaper, such as plastics. In my research, I will specifically investigate the internal geometry of plastic mixtures, which is a key property that needs to be understood and optimized in order to improve upon the currently low performance of the plastic solar cells. I hope that my research may contribute to the global collaborative effort to make solar energy more widely utilized in our society in the future.