Directory

I studied Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of African Sleeping Sickness, for my PhD.
Immediately afterwards I remained in Cambridge, working in pharmaceutical research on the Cambridge Science Park.
In January 2016 I returned to Ireland to begin work as a patent associate.

Growing up in Southern Nigeria, I became fascinated with the tropical landscape and its biodiversity-rich ecosystems, this motivated me to build a career in environmental and agricultural sustainability. I am currently studying an MPhil in Biological Sciences (Zoology) at the University of Cambridge. One of the unique challenges we face is finding the best approach to co-exist with the natural world. In a world already battling with climate change, how do we bridge the gap between Biodiversity conservation and food security? As the world’s population grows, the demand for food and non-food products is ever-increasing, and as far back as human history can record man has always sought ways to manipulate the environment to derive a higher standard of living, resulting in agricultural intensification and land use changes across the globe. Food security depends on the valuable ecosystem services provided by the vast interplay of the earth’s fauna and flora. My PhD will focus on developing eco-friendly strategies to help improve biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services within agroecosystems in tropical regions with a focus on oil palm plantations. I hope to positively shape the future of sustainable agriculture in West Africa.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Biological Sciences (Zoology) 2024
University of Benin Ani. and Environmental Biology 2021

Upon completing my degree in Psychology, I made my first foray into psychiatry by working as a research assistant to at Singapore's National Neuroscience Institute. While administering neuropsychological assessments for dementia patients, I became fascinated by the global challenge to halt the disease. I decided that fighting against neurodegenerative disorders would be my life endeavor. With a MRI research fellowship at University at Buffalo’s Neuroimaging Analysis Center, I am investigating the neural correlates of cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease. It is just so exciting to be part of a respected team at Cambridge, where I aim to improve early and accurate diagnosis of dementia subtypes. Through the utilization of mulitmodal neuroimaging techniques, I will be working with Professor John O'Brien to identify distinctive and signature patterns of cerebral abnormalities associated with specific dementia subtypes.

I'm interested in exploring the roles of art and arts funding in modern society. My focus of research is Russian Non-Conformist Art in the late 20th Century. By contrasting Socialist Realism with dissident art that defied the Communist Regime, I'm hoping to learn more about the social and political influences of art.

Ntombizodwa is a Ph.D. student at the Pathology Department and Babraham Institute in the laboratory of Adrian Liston and James Dooley. Her project focuses on understanding lung immunity and finding ways to minimize harmful immune responses during a viral infection such as Covid 19 and influenza. She is exploring regulatory T cells as a therapeutic mechanism to control the responses and promote tissue healing. Prior to her Ph.D., she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Medicinal Biochemistry at Arizona State University and an honors degree project on biomarkers for early detection of Human Papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cervical cancers. In the past, she has worked in various academic labs in the United States of America (Biodesign Institute) and the pharmaceutical industry (Novartis). She is also a social entrepreneur working on providing quality education and a supportive system to young African girls through the 100 Young Women Initiative at Shasha Network. She aspires to combine her interests in entrepreneurship and research to maximize the impact on healthcare in the world.

Previous Education

Arizona State University Medicinal Chemistry 2019

In my PhD I have researched the phenotypic consequences of elevated autozygosity in humans and am currently studying the genetics underlying human cognitive development.

Previous Education

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Biostatistics and Mathematics 2020

I am Associate Professor of Political Science at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. I earned my PhD in Political Science from Northwestern University. My research interests include the study of political violence, gender-based violence, and social movements and contentious politics,. Much of my work involves cross-regional comparisons of African and South Asian cases. I have conducted field research on various aspects of conflict and conflict-resolution in Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Cambodia, India, and Nepal. My first book, Playing with Fire: Parties and Political Violence in Kenya and India was published by Cambridge University Press in 2024. Drawing on a cross-regional comparison of Kenya and India along with subnational comparisons in the two countries, this book develops a novel theory about the relationship between political parties and conflict.

Links

https://www.aditimalik.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aditi-malik-b99880252

Despite my love for all topics of linguistics, it was only after completing a course in endangered language documentation that the beauty and importance of language studies crystallized before me. Our small class at Columbia University collectively documented the phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, and stories of Zazaki—an threatened relative of Kurdish—by eliciting translations from our local language consultant. As a result, we grew to understand the language very organically, and more importantly, managed to preserve a portion of Zaza cultural history in a public database. Given the prediction that approximately 50% of the world’s languages will no longer exist by the 21st century, the urgency of documentation is not to be understated. During my MPhil at Cambridge, I will deepen my familiarity with linguistic theory in order to accurately and respectfully document languages for independent research in Bantu syntax. After conducting thesis research in Kribi, Cameroon last summer, I grew fascinated by the noun class system of African languages, and plan to study endangered Bantu languages with a focus on this feature. I am confident that Cambridge’s unparalleled department of linguistics can guide my research to become the best that it can be.

Previous Education

Columbia University

The occurrence of infectious diseases still remains one of the major challenges the world has to face. These diseases have not only brought economic losses, but more importantly some have posed great threats to human health. It is my objective that by specialising in microbiology, I can contribute to solving this problem. Being accepted in one of the best universities in the world and winning a prestigious Gates scholarship have greatly encouraged me in my belief that I can realise this goal.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge M.Phil. in Linguistics 2001
Harvard University AB Applied Mathematics 1999

Solange Manche’s doctoral project is concerned with the resurgence of the critique of political economy in contemporary French philosophy, after the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Focusing on the thought of Catherine Malabou, Frédéric Lordon, and Bernard Stiegler, she works on the relation between the temporalities of financialisation and individuation. Other aspects of her research include social movements, new forms of labour, French cinema activism, and the reception of Hegel and Marx in France.

She is currently preparing a post-doc project on the return of economic planning and the question of communism with a focus on France, but not exclusively.

Previous Education

Artez University of the Arts
Utrecht University
EHESS and ENS (Paris)

Ayan S. Mandal, PhD, is a medical student and neuroscientist at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to medical school, he received a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue a PhD at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, where he wrote a thesis on network neuroscience and brain tumors. Ayan graduated from Georgetown University in 2018, where he majored in Neurobiology and Physics. His research has been presented at several national and international conferences and published in multiple peer-reviewed journals. He is also the author of A Stethoscope for the Brain, a book about proactive strategies to prevent brain diseases.

Previous Education

Georgetown University

Biologist (Developmental Neurobiology) & International Affairs; 3 years as science journalist; 6 years communications for International Organistion dedicated to water management (ICPDR); As of autumn 2016, Head of Communications for bio-medical research institute (IMP).

I spent my childhood in Calhoun, Kentucky, a small town in the US heartland (we recently got our first traffic light!). I subsequently attended the University of Kentucky, where I completed my BSc in Agricultural Biotechnology. While a student, I was actively involved in undergraduate research with the Department of Plant Pathology and served as the President for the Society for the Promotion of Undergraduate Research. After graduating from UK, I devoted my time to a startup compost company on my family farm. I will be continuing some of my responsibilities with Charlie’s Compost while completing the Bioscience Enterprise MPhil at Cambridge. My plans after the MBE program are to pursue a PhD in Biology at MIT. My long-term goals are to establish myself in the biotechnology industry without losing partial involvement in my family business. I am particularly interested in agricultural and environmental issues and how they can be positively affected by conscious capitalism.

I was born and raised in The Gambia and completed my undergraduate studies in Biological Sciences (Genetics, Cell & Developmental Biology) at Arizona State University. While in The Gambia, I worked in a research lab and it was here that I developed an interest in biomedical research. Most recently, studying public health has made me understand the magnitude of the threat that infectious diseases possess to human health and wellbeing, but tackling these diseases requires an in-depth understanding of the diseases both at the cellular and molecular levels to help inform public health approaches to controlling and eradicating them. At Cambridge, I will be investigating the molecular mechanisms by which rare variants of the human glycophorin protein (transmembrane protein in human red blood cells) provide protection against malaria using biochemical and microscopy approaches. Increasing our understanding of these mechanisms can help us develop new therapies to protect people against malaria- a leading cause of child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. My future goal is to be a part of the global effort to understand and eradicate malaria and other infectious diseases that are affecting millions of people around the world.

Previous Education

University of British Columbia Public Health 2020
Arizona State University Biological Sciences 2018

While Archimedes chose a lever and fulcrum, I would pick data and the right question. Properly directed analytics really can move the world. That’s why I so passionately believe in making vital data skills and tools available to everyone, whether you are starting from the beginning or seeking to take it to the next level. This passion is voiced in my analytic education and consultancy business, Merakinos. My goal with Merakinos is to advance how we use data, with a special focus on those people and organizations new to the analytics space. Together we can transform the world, one data-inspired decision at a time.

Links

https://www.merakinos.com
http://www.alexandraorion.wordpress.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandramannerings
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3323830

Originally from Greece, I came to the UK to study Biomedical Sciences. During my studies, I grew an interest in cancer treatment research, which was developed in my internship at the Institute of Cancer Therapeutics in Bradford. There, I realised the uncanny similarities between embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and cancer cells at the metabolic level, and identified the need to gain a deeper understanding of the key events occuring in early mammalian embryogenesis. For this reason, I decided to do an MPhil in Developmental Biology at the University of Cambridge, and to focus on the link between metabolism and embryonic development, by studying a recently generated in-vitro model, called gastruloids. These are 3D aggregates of ESCs (mouse and human) that successfully mimic the spatiotemporal patterns of embryos and give us access to some previously inaccessible stages of early embryogenesis. Preliminary data of my research support the crucial effect of energy metabolism, not only on cell growth, but also on cell signaling and pluripotency. My goal as a PhD student at the Martinez Arias lab is to continue and expand on my current research, which is in accordance with the principle of the ‘3Rs’ (Replace, Reduce and Refine the use of animals in Research) and paves the way towards personalised medicine. I am incredibly honoured to be part of the vibrant and insightful Gates Cambridge Community and its global network of Scholars, who collectively aim to improve the life of others.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Biological Science (Genetics) 2019
University of Bradford Biomedical Science 2018