Directory

As a Gates scholar, I completed my PhD in Pathology with a project in cancer genomics where I used CRISPR technology (then very new) to elucidate the function in cancer progression of a gene of interest. After brief postdoctoral positions at the University of Cambridge, I worked as a research scientist in Genetic Modification Services at the Francis Crick Institute, where I was a molecular biologist and also established their bioinformatics pipeline for validating long reads (using Nanopore sequencing) to identify any CRISPR unintended edits. That lab provided bespoke gene edited mice for the various research labs at the Crick. I am currently a senior scientist in Gene Editing at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, which provides a similar CRISPR-edited bespoke gene modification service, but does so in induced pluripotent stem cells rather than mice.

I studied Physics and Philosophy at LUMS (Pakistan), and then Education as a Fulbright Scholar at Teachers College Columbia University. I am also a New York state trained Emergency Medical Technician. In the last decade I have worked as an educator and education policy consultant. In 2017 I founded Saving 9, a social enterprise dedicated to transforming mindsets in order to save lives; pioneering initiatives such as launching Pakistan's first women-run ambulance, the world's 2nd mental health ambulance and creating a novel Socio-Emotional Inclusion Index that measures how well regions are catering to the mental wellness of youth. Through my work, I came to realise that countless social problems are aggravated by lack of conversations around science and religion. I also realised that many of these challenges are a consequence of the ongoing impact of centuries of colonialism in the Global South. This is why my PhD research focuses on decolonising science education from within an Islamic framework. I am doing this by contributing both to educational philosophy for Muslim educators, and by conducting participatory action research with Muslim schools to reimagine science education at the secondary school level. This research will provide rich learning on public policies for social issues and help identify roadblocks that hinder citizens of postcolonial Muslim countries from making substantial contributions to the natural sciences.

Previous Education

Columbia University Teachers College Education 2017
Lahore University of Management Sciences Physics 2013

Links

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/usama-javed-mirza-b9845178

I work on comparative Indigenous literatures from India, Australia and North America. As a Gates Scholar (2014-15) at Centre for South Asian Studies, I researched Adivasi song cultures and oral histories. I am the co-founder of Untold Histories Museum Tours at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge which was awarded Outstanding Student Contribution to Education by Cambridge Centre for Teaching and Learning. In 2019, I co-founded Bread Theatre and Film Company (www.breadtheatreandfilm.co.uk), a collective that produces and supports distinctive cross-boundary theatre and art-forms that establish alternative narratives at the heart of artistic spaces.

I grew up in Toronto, Canada and did my undergraduate and masters degree at the University of Cambridge, studying engineering and specialising in computer and information engineering. During my degree, I became interested in artificial intelligence and machine learning, especially the biological basis for learning. In neuroscience, there are computational analogues in machine learning algorithms to what is observed in biology, such as the reward prediction error theory and reinforcement learning. During my PhD at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the neurobiology division, I seek to understand the behaviour of dopamine neurons and the neural circuits that regulate these activities, using the Drosophila larva as a model system. With this research, we can gain insight, through new developments in connectomics, the circuit basis for learning, which can inform us about biologically-inspired methods in machine learning. I hope to use these insights from biological experiments to understand the neurobiological basis for learning, as well as inspire new algorithms in machine learning and artificial intelligence. This can in turn help us postulate new theories for how learning occurs biologically.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Engineering Tripos 2022

I studied clinical medicine in Iran and joined Cambridge University in 2006 for an MPhil in Epidemiology. I continued my studies to a PhD in Public Health with the help from Gates Scholarship. After finishing my studies in 2011, I worked in King's College London and then Imperial College London on various exciting projects on population-based clinical studies and state-of-the-art technological advances in the field of genomic and metabolomic studies. I am currently working in the University College London on the topic of electronic health records and use of Big Data for advancing patient care and population health.

My research examines kitchen archives from the early modern period into the digital age in England and Mexico. Melding together past and present, I will bring together the perspectives and practices of families and collaborative authors, dealers, archivists, scholars, and members of the public to inquire into the impulse to create, preserve, and use repositories of informal, everyday knowledge and the losses and silences along the way.

My interests lie in critical archival studies, participatory action research methods, public engagement and community training, and in exploring digital tools for enabling access and co-construction of archival material.

I am currently PI of an Imagining Futures Phase 2 commissioned project that integrates archiving into the everyday life of residents from Sotuta, a Maya community in Yucatan, Mexico. Working together, we aim to create a transmedia archive that simultaneously buttresses of intangible forms of transmission. Moreover, through the process of self-archiving, we aim to foster a way of experiencing the present that brings out our historical agency and how our ties to the past can shape collective futures.

Previous Education

University College London Early Modern Studies 2019
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico English Language and lit. 2017

Kamiar Mohaddes is an expert in the macroeconomics of climate change and sustainability at Cambridge University, where he is the Co-Director of the climaTRACES Lab, a new interdisciplinary research initiative at the University of Cambridge focusing on climate, nature, and sustainability. He is also the Deputy Director of the Cambridge Executive MBA programme and Fellow in Economics at King’s College, Cambridge, where he co-founded and directs the King’s Entrepreneurship Lab.

In addition to climate change and sustainability, Kamiar's research covers energy economics, economics of the Middle East, and applied macroeconomics more broadly. He is among the top 1% authors globally in IDEAS/RePEc (based on last 10 years of publications). His articles have been published in a number of edited volumes (Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Routledge) as well as in leading journals, including the Journal of Applied Econometrics, Journal of International Economics, Management Science, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. His research has also been covered in major international news outlets including the BBC, Bloomberg, The Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Kamiar’s work has been cited extensively by policymakers, including by more than 25 members of the United States Congress, the Congressional Budget Office, and the White House.

Kamiar has worked extensively on issues related to climate change and sustainability with both the public (including the United Nations, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, IDB) and the private sector (BCG, BNP Paribas, KPMG and many others). He is a regular visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund and has previously served as a Departmental Special Advisor at the Bank of Canada. He has worked closely with colleagues at these institutions to, for instance, develop tools to help examine and disentangle the size and speed of the transmission of different global, regional, and national macroeconomic shocks.

Kamiar obtained his PhD in economics from Cambridge as a Gates Scholar.

Links

https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/people/kamiar-mohaddes
https://www.mohaddes.org
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamiarmohaddes

My proposed research deals with resource competition and inter-ethnic relations in south-central part of Ethiopia. It focuses on the link between the impact of ethnic relation on people’s access to natural resources on the one hand and how relations between various ethnic groups are influenced by individual’s decisions to secure access to such resources. The research is believed to contribute to the effort to understand the factors that shape relations among different ethnic groups.

I am pursuing a PhD in Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, researching European nuclear & human rights frameworks. I am a policy analyst with a background in technology, development, and security policy for leading think tanks, government, and international organizations. I hold a Masters in International Policy from Stanford University and Bachelors in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. My experiences include collaborating with the United Nations Innovation Cell to monitor open-source information from the War in Ukraine, consulting with the United Nations Development Programme in South Africa to increase technology access for marginalized youth, supporting the U.S. Department of State on nuclear nonproliferation initiatives, and researching at Stanford University on human rights institutions in Southeast Asia. I am also an avid researcher and author, publishing with organizations like the Stimson Center, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and Smithsonian Institution. I have represented my research at international conferences including at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Austria, Nehru Memorial Museum in India, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the U.S. Beyond my diverse policy interests, I co-founded a nonprofit that provided free career development and mental health mentorship virtually in over 35 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. I am especially passionate about promoting youth literacy and education, and have tutored immigrant youth in core subjects, organized textbook donations for low-income schools, and became certified in TEFL to teach English as a foreign language. In my personal time, I enjoy exploring the world around me and can be found reflecting in nature or listening to music. I also enjoy learning new languages, creating art, and spending time with my dog, Rishi. To connect with me, visit www.linkedin.com/in/justjanani or www.justjanani.com

Previous Education

Stanford University International Policy/Security 2022
Diplomatic Academy of Vienna Exchange Program from Stanford 2021
University of California, Berkeley Political Science 2019

I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Biochemistry and a BS in Economics. At Cambridge, I am pursuing an MPhil in Biochemistry. My research focuses on understanding polyketide antibiotic biosynthesis and its implications for less toxic antibiotics.

My main research interests are in neuropharmacology. For my PhD, I will be investigating the pharmacology of the blood brain barrier (BBB). This membranous barrier protects the brain from potentially harmful exogenous substances but also serves to impede advantageous drug delivery to the brain. I will use multidisciplinary approaches in my investigations of the BBB to provide further clarity on the pharmacological and biochemical mechanisms taking place in this region. Greater knowledge on the functioning of the BBB may have implications for drug delivery to the brain and in the pathology of certain CNS disorders. I believe my time spent at Cambridge will provide me with excellent training for my future career in medical research.

Energy infrastructure fascinates me. So much of society is built around and is dependent on our energy supply. Over the years, the way we access energy has repeatedly been revolutionised. Now, we are painfully aware that a complete revolution is again necessary. The energy sector of South Africa, my home country, is not only unsustainably dependent on coal but urgently requires expansion to meet rising demand. This gives us a fantastic opportunity to develop our energy sector in a sustainable direction. During my MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development at Cambridge I will study the options available to developing countries and how we can implement the necessary changes. I will focus on the decentralisation of energy supply and solar electric power production. The practical aspects of sustainable development that this course teaches will build on the technical knowledge that I have gained through my undergraduate degree in chemical engineering and my professional experience in a small Namibian energy company. It is an exciting and dynamic time that we are living in. I am honoured to be joining the Gates Cambridge community: an inter-disciplinary cohort that are working to make that change positive.

Previous Education

University of Cape Town

During my study in Melbourne, I took part in a project for resettlement of displaced rural communities in the Peruvian Andes. This experience reinforced an interest in post-conflict societies already developed through five years of active involvement with human rights NGOs in Stockholm. It also convinced me of the importance of researching transitional justice and the role of Truth Commissions in furthering dialogue and democracy. During my MPhil in Latin American Studies at Cambridge I looked at discursive narratives that emerged alongside the Peruvian Truth Commission’s report. In my PhD I will attempt to expand this and explore the way in which bystanders understand/represent the conflict that tormented Peru during the 1980s/90s and its aftermath. I plan to work with non-profit organisations in Sweden and Peru, contributing to the development of strategies that allow a constructive and successful dialogue between the communities of perpetrators, bystanders, and survivors.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge MPhil in Latin American Studies 2007
University of Melbourne BA Hons (History and Political Science) 2006

Born and raised in Saint Petersburg, Russia, I attended Saint Petersburg State University, where I have developed a strong interest in polar geophysical research. I continued my academic career at the University of Texas at Austin as a Fulbright scholar, where I applied marine geophysical techniques to study the history of past glaciations preserved within continental margins of Alaska and East Antarctica. I find studying complex interactions between ice, ocean, climate and tectonics on different temporal and spatial scales to be fascinating. More importantly, these studies hold the key to a better understanding of the long-term history of the global climate. At Cambridge, I hope to continue exploring polar regions in order to better understand the past of the cryosphere with implications for better projecting its future.

Previous Education

SAINT PETERSBURG STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Montero was the first Mexican recipient of the Gates Scholarship for doctoral work in the humanities. Her current book project focuses on the hummingbird as an object of scholarly inquiry across an array of fields, including the history of science, archaeology, anthropology, art history and environmental history. She has taught previously at the Institute of Philosophical Research (UNAM) in Mexico City and currently teaches in the Science and Technology Studies Program at Brown University.

Links

http://http://brown.academia.edu/IrisMontero
https://vivo.brown.edu/display/imontero