Directory

I completed a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Applied Statistics at the Australian National University. After graduating, I worked at PwC in Australia, whilst qualifying as an actuary. My work and studies focus on financial risk management in relation to retirement incomes, health insurance and aged care, employee benefits and welfare.

I hold a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University, USA. I am also a Certified Public Health professional by the National Board of Public Health Examiners (NBPHE), USA. I have experience in clinical medicine, research and global health. I am currently reading the epidemiology of hepatitis C virus infection in is sub-Saharan Africa.

My interest in structural biology began in high school, where I studied peptide segments that form the core of infectious prion fibrils by x-ray crystallography. This research experience culminated in my giving an invited talk at the 2019 CCP4 Study Weekend in Nottingham University, UK. My exposure to science at an early age led to my pursuit of a B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale. In college, a particularly meaningful research experience was when I worked to understand membrane protein insertion at the endoplasmic reticulum. This experience led to my fascination for the remarkable diversity of membrane proteins. At Cambridge, I will study how the mitochondria, an essential organelle in nearly all eukaryotic cells, imports more than 1000 proteins from the cytosol. This project could lead to a better understanding of how defects in mitochondrial metabolism cause various human neurodegenerative and metabolic diseases and to the design of novel therapeutics targeting mitochondrial metabolism. The Gates Cambridge Scholarship will give me the incredible opportunity to pursue my passion for interdisciplinary projects at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology with some of the world’s experts in the field.

Previous Education

Yale University Molecular Biophysics & Biochem 2022

Before recently returning to academia for an MPhil in Sociology of Marginality and Exclusion, I worked in humanitarian response for ten years, focusing on preventing and providing services to survivors of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). I lived and worked in Uganda, Ethiopia, Iraq and Lebanon, and have supported programmes across the Middle East, Central and Eastern Africa, working with populations displaced by conflict. Throughout my career, I have always sought to improve the quality and extend the reach of services I provided, especially mindful of the importance of including women and girls who might be marginalised within their own community. With this goal in mind, I am taking on a PhD in Sociology to explore the introduction of the theory and practice of intersectionality within humanitarian responses from a decolonial and feminist perspective. By leveraging both my professional and research experience, I will work closely with displaced women and girls affected by violence to develop guidance for humanitarian practitioners to adopt an intersectional approach to the design and delivery of VAWG prevention and response programmes. I am also interested in exploring research methods that recognise and attend to the significant power imbalances inherent in the researcher-participant relationship in situations of displacement. As a Gates scholar, a humanitarian practitioner and a researcher I will continue to contribute to building a safer world for women and girls

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Marginality and Exclusion 2019
London School of Economics & Political Science (Un Development Management 2008
Universita Degli Studi Bologna InternationalCooperationDevel 2007

Marc Mierowsky is a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow in English and Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne. He is one of the editors of The Correspondence of Daniel Defoe (Cambridge UP, 2021) and co-editor with Nicholas Seager of Defoe’s Roxana for Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford UP, 2022). His monograph A Spy Amongst Us: Defoe’s Secret Service and the Campaign to End Scottish Independence is forthcoming with Yale University Press.

Links

https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/843332-marc-mierowsky

I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, in the beautiful northwest USA. My academic background is in hydrology (MS), mechanical engineering (HBS), and international studies (HBA) with minors in mathematics and Spanish. I am also an avid mountaineer and global traveller with strong humanitarian leanings. These recreational pursuits have inspired me to focus my academic interests to glaciology and alpine hydrology. My proposed research at the Scott Polar Research Institute investigates the retreat of Himalayan glaciers to predict the formation of hazardous lakes, which can have catastrophic impacts on downstream communities. Glaciology and hydrology will increase in importance through the 21st century as the impacts of climate change become more profound and marginal communities are increasingly affected.

Links

https://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/e.miles
https://twitter.com/Miles_of_Ice
http://gatescambridge.org/our-scholars/spotlight.asp?ItemID=14010

The main field of my PhD research was second language acquisition, i.e. the study of how non-native languages are learned. This is one of the subjects that I now teach and continue to research. I am mostly interested in how the different languages a person speaks affect each other.
Since the end of my PhD, I have worked at the University of Belgrade and the University of Bologna (which is my current institution). I am also active in a Serbia-based association that promotes empirical approaches to languages, called Regional Linguistic Data Initiative (ReLDI).

Previous Education

University of Cambridge MPhil (English and Applied Linguistics) 2004
University of Belgrade BA (Italian Language and Literature) 2001

Links

https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/maja.milicevic2/en
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maja-milicevic-9b826045

Being involved with the Cambridge Vehicle Dynamics Consortium (CVDC) was a formative experience. Their decades-worth of knowledge, combined with access to full-scale test vehicles and coaching from numerous sponsor companies offered me an unparalleled learning experience that straddled both academia and industry.

Previous Education

McGill University M.Eng. Mechanical Engineering 2005
University of Calgary B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering 2003

Links

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-miller-4a26143b

I grew up in Long Valley, New Jersey, and it was during high school that I first developed an appreciation for the beauty and complexities of physics. I then received a Bachelor of Arts from Colgate University with a major in physics and minor in biology, while lettering in Varsity Lacrosse. There, I was a long standing member of Professor of Physics Ken Segall’s team where I investigated superconducting circuits for neurocomputational modeling with applications to epilepsy. During my summers, I additionally conducted research in bioelectronics and nano-optics. My undergraduate experiences have driven my passion to use research to address long standing medical issues and unmet clinical needs. I am pursuing a MPhil at Cambridge with Dr. Chris Rodger’s group to further develop Deuterium Metabolic Imaging (DMI) as a viable clinical tool for neuroimaging. Engaging in this research, I aspire to contribute significantly to the field of medical imaging throughout my predoctoral experience. I am honored to be joining the esteemed Gates Cambridge Community, and greatly look forward to beginning my work.

Previous Education

Colgate University Physics 2024

I just completed my third year of medical school at the Mayo Clinic and am pursuing an MPhil in Public Health. In the past, I have traveled both domestically and abroad primarily to provide medical care in underserved communities. I also spent the last few years volunteering in both community and smoking cessation clinics and developing health education materials. Additionally, I recently studied cultural barriers to tuberculosis screening within immigrant and refugee groups.

From a young age, I expressed a keen interest in the issues surrounding infectious diseases and global epidemics. As a Biomedical Engineering student at Arizona State University, my interest in epidemiology and its engineering applications were further developed and contextualized by an additional minor in Global Health and a research internship at the Translational Genomics Research Institute. During the course of my PhD in Chemical Engineering at Cambridge, I aspire to develop novel diagnostics for C. difficile, the deadliest superbug in the United States, and C. perfringens, the second leading cause of food poisoning. With C. difficile, there is a direct correlation between mortality and the timing and choice of initial treatment. With the invention of an immediate diagnostic that detects the level of infection, mortality rates may be reduced across global communities.I seek to be a leader in the worldwide pursuit to alleviate the burden of disease on developing populations by delivering technologies that are simple, inexpensive, and—above all else—feasible in their applicable environments. I am grateful to be joining the Gates Cambridge Community and for the opportunity to network with some of the greatest intellects of our generation with the united goal of improving the human condition.

Previous Education

Arizona State University BS in Engineering Biomedical Engineering 2019

As an MPhil Development Studies student I intend to focus, among others, on the present state of Africa’s development, globalisation and its impact on developing countries, and the way forward for developing countries like Ghana. I believe Cambridge would provide me with the knowledge and exposure to make a real difference in Ghana. I strongly believe that my vision in life is shaped by Proverbs 31 from where I get my name. “Speak up for people who cannot speak for themselves. Protect the rights of all who are helpless. Speak for them and be a righteous judge. Protect the rights of the poor and needy.” (The Bible, Proverbs 31)

Previous Education

University of Ghana BA Political Science 2006

My interests in foreign cultures and charitable work have evolved through the years from overseas studies and a French language degree to volunteer work in Botswana, and five years as a foundation staff member funding Chicago non-profits and international relief efforts.  In law school my discovery of refugee law allowed me to merge these interests, pursuing academic issues related to international refugee policy and personal representation of refugee clients. For 2 years I have been teaching law in Scotland, where I continued to explore gaps in international refugee protection, particularly outside territorial borders where little or no protection exists. I am particularly interested in the broader issue of treaty application when a country acts outside its own borders. A PhD at Cambridge gives me the luxury of focusing my research on a concrete legal problem that endangers lives and threatens international treaty-making and enforcement.

I started my PhD in 2010 after completing a specialist training in general internal medicine. In 2007 I had 3 months of intensive exposure to cutting edge research at the University of Cambridge, concentrating on the molecular genetics of insulin resistance. The project I helped to develop then, aimed to investigate the relationship between insulin and production of the fat cell hormone adiponectin, which has attracted keen interest as a marker of and potential treatment for diabetes. During my PhD I investigated a rare syndrome of human hypoglycemia and left sided overgrowth, caused by an activating mutation in a critical regulator of the insulin signalling cascade named AKT2. I am currently working towards completion of my PhD thesis, with an aim to go back to practicing clinical endocrine medicine and applying knowledge obtained during my postgraduate training in Cambridge.

My research, teaching, and consultancy focus on how the brain shapes our rituals of thought, feeling, and action, how they can be improved, and how they break down. Over a decade of study and work in the domains of cognition and its disorders have informed my understanding of the mind, human behaviour, and interpersonal dynamics. My six-year tenure in the Australian Defence Force, culminating as a Platoon Commander (Infantry) leading soldiers on and off the field, has shaped my perspective on leadership, team dynamics, and operational excellence.

To sum it up briefly, my specialties are: the neural basis of intelligent behaviour; leadership, community and human systems change; and wellbeing in the brain.

Previous Education

Royal Military College, Duntroon
Macquarie University

Links

https://btr.mt
https://dorian.mino.rs
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorianminors

As an undergraduate studying planetary science and history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), I had always thought of my scientific and humanistic interests as disparate. As a sophomore, I participated in the pilot MIT and Slavery project, researching MIT's historical relationship to slavery and its legacies. This project illuminated for me some of the deeply entrenched ways science and technology are entangled in structures of oppression. I realized that not only could I combine my passions for science and history, but it is in fact imperative for my scientific field to wrestle with its own historical legacies. Although biomedical and anthropological pursuits are more visibly embedded in contexts such as colonialism and slavery at their surface, the physical sciences are equally grounded in these structures. At Cambridge, I plan to focus on the history of the late modern physical and earth sciences - their institutions, technologies, materials, and networks - against this background. I hope to build bridges between scientists and scholars of history of science and science and technology studies, and encourage my colleagues in planetary science to interrogate and situate their work in context.

Previous Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Planetary Science & Astronomy 2020