Four Gates Cambridge Scholars talk about their lives outside academia.
Teach for America, running a B & B, dancesport and an open source movement to provide light to poor households form part of a session of stories about Gates Cambridge Scholars this week.
Rebecca Berrens [2012], who is doing a PhD in Biological Sciences focused on epigenetic reprogramming in mammalian development, will talk about her travels and how they influenced here to join the Liter of Light movement and start up a branch here in the United Kingdom. Liter of Light is a global open source movement with the aim to provide an ecologically and economically sustainable source of light to underprivileged households that do not have access to electricity or have difficulties affording electricity. It involves filling up a 1.5L PET bottle with purified water and bleach and installing in onto the roof of a house. The water inside the bottle refracts the sunlight during the daytime and creates the same intensity as a 55 watt light bulb.
Ke Wu [2012], who is doing an MPhil in Education looking at possible ways to address inequalities in the US education system, will talk about her time working at Teach for America, explaining what it is, what the experience was like and speak of what she envisions as the role of education now and in the future. Teach for America is a national teacher corps of college graduates and professionals who commit to teach for two years and raise student achievement in US public schools.
Halliki Voolma [2011], who is completing her PhD in multidisciplinary gender studies on domestic violence against immigrant women, will speak about how she helped Cambridge triumph in the Annual Cambridge vs Oxford Dancesport Varsity Match. Her talk is titled 10 things you don’t know about dance.
Stella Nordhagen [2008] will talk about three episodes linked to her PhD work: working as a farmhand in Italy and doing fieldwork in Ethiopia and Papua New Guinea, including unexpectedly running a B&B, “accidentally living with a cult, and purposefully running with one”.
The talks take place in the Gates room on Tuesday 21 May at 7pm.
Picture credit: Grant Cochrane and www.freedigitalphotos.net.
