People

As co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda French Gates shapes and approves the foundation’s strategies, reviews results, and sets the organization’s overall direction. Photo credit: Jason Bell

As co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates shapes and approves foundation strategies, advocates for the foundation’s issues, and sets the organization’s overall direction. Photo credit: Gates Notes LLC

Professor Deborah Prentice became the University of Cambridge’s 347th Vice-Chancellor on 1 July 2023. An eminent psychologist, Professor Prentice carried out her academic and administrative career at Princeton University, which she first joined in 1988. She rose through the academic ranks and took on administrative responsibilities of increasing scope, chairing the Department of Psychology for 12 years, serving as Dean of Faculty for three years, and then serving six years as Provost, with primary responsibility for all academic, budgetary, and long-term planning issues. Her academic expertise is in the study of social norms that govern human behaviour – particularly the impact and development of unwritten rules and conventions, and how people respond to breaches of those rules. She has edited three academic volumes and published more than 50 articles and chapters, and she has specialised in the study of domestic violence, alcohol abuse and gender stereotypes.

Tim Harvey-Samuel graduated in English from Queens' in 1987 and has been Bursar of Trinity Hall since March 2020, prior to which he was Bursar of Corpus Christi College for six years. He also lectures for the Master of Finance programme at the Judge Business School. He spent 26 years in investment banking, mainly at Schroders and Citigroup where he led the Equity Capital Markets business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Amy is the Director of Community Engagement & Family Interest Grants at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington. In this role Amy manages the personal giving of the Gates family. Amy has worked at the Foundation for nearly 20 years, holding various positions including: Program Officer, Global Health (Family Planning & Reproductive Health), Special Program Officer to CEO Patty Stonesifer, and Program Officer for Special Initiatives, US Program. Prior professional experience includes: the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (Population Program); Planned Parenthood Federation of America; and the Echoing Green Foundation. Amy received her BA from Mount Holyoke College (with Honors) and a MPH from Columbia University with a focus on Population and Family Health. She lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.

Dame Sally Davies was installed as the 40th Master of Trinity College on 8 October 2019. She joined the College after a distinguished career as a clinical academic and public servant. Dame Sally graduated from Manchester Medical School in 1972 and became a Consultant Haematologist specialising in sickle cell disease. In 1997 she was appointed as Honorary Professor of Haemoglobinopathies at Imperial College. Dame Sally was the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department of Health from 2004-2016. In 2006 she founded the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and was the Inaugural Director. In 2013 she established and became a Non-Executive Director of Genomics England Ltd (GEL) which sequenced 100,000 whole genomes of NHS patients. Dame Sally was the Chief Medical Officer for England and Senior Medical Advisor to the UK Government from 2011-2019. She authorised 11 independent annual reports and 3 special reports: Medical Cannabis, Screen Times for Children and Obesity in Childhood. She has become a leading figure in global health including serving as a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Executive Board 2014-2016 and as co-convener of the United Nations Inter-Agency Co-ordination Group (IACG) on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) reporting in 2019. She has championed the need to address AMR across all sections: human and animal health, agriculture and environment within the UN family and globally. In 2019 Dame Sally was appointed as the UK Government’s Special Envoy for Global AMR. Dame Sally received her DBE in 2009. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014 and a member of the National Academy of Medicine, USA in 2015. She has been awarded more than 30 honorary doctorate degrees.

Mimi Gardner Gates was director of the Seattle Art Museum for fifteen years and is now director emerita, overseeing the Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas. Previously, she spent nineteen years at Yale University Art Gallery, the last seven-and-a-half of those years as director. She is a fellow of the Yale Corporation; Chairman of the Dunhuang Foundation; Chairman of the Blakemore Foundation; a trustee of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum; a trustee of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, and serves on the boards of the Yale University Art Gallery, the Northwest African American Museum, the Terra Foundation and Copper Canyon Press. Dr. Gates formerly chaired the National Indemnity Program at the National Endowment for the Arts and served on the Getty Leadership Institute Advisory Committee.

Usha Goswami CBE FRS FBA is Professor of Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge. She is also founding Director of the Centre for Neuroscience in Education. After training as a primary school teacher, Usha decided to pursue research in child psychology, focusing on reading development and dyslexia. Most recently, she has been studying the neural mechanisms underpinning language encoding. Her research goal is to understand the brain basis of dyslexia and speech and language difficulties, to improve children’s experience of both diagnosis and remediation. She has received a number of awards for her research, including the British Psychology Society’s Spearman Medal and President’s Award and the Norman Geschwind-Rodin Prize for Dyslexia research, Sweden. Her work in developing the new discipline of neuroscience in education was recognised in 2019 by the Yidan Prize for Education Research, the largest international education research prize globally.

Jonathan Holloway, who was appointed the 21st president of Rutgers in 2020, is an eminent historian specializing in post-emancipation United States history with a focus on social and intellectual history. Dr. Holloway is the author of several books, most recently The Cause of Freedom: A Concise History of African Americans, published last year. Prior to accepting the presidency of Rutgers, Dr. Holloway was provost of Northwestern University from 2017 to 2020 and a member of the faculty of Yale University from 1999 to 2017. At Yale, he served as Dean of Yale College and the Edmund S. Morgan Professor of African American Studies, History, and American Studies. He earned his bachelor’s degree with honors in American studies from Stanford University and a PhD in history from Yale University. Dr. Holloway serves on several boards, including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Gates Cambridge Trust, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. He is a Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Julia completed a PhD Engineering in 2012, which focused on innovative financing solutions for global health. Stemming from her PhD research at Gates Cambridge, she originated, raised and deployed the world's first $108mm Global Health Investment Fund with Lion's Head Global Partners and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The purpose of the fund was to provide financing to advance the development of drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and other interventions against diseases that disproportionately burden low-income countries. Before coming to Cambridge, Julia qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG's Canadian biotechnology practice and undertook projects for a variety of organisations including GAVI and WHO. During her time in Cambridge, Julia co-founded the African Innovation Prize, served on the University Council, and initiated and convened the Cambridge Global Health Commercialization and Funding Roundtable. Julia is currently based in London's White City biomedical campus as Co-Founder & CEO of Micrographia Bio, a deeptech bio company focused on applying machine learning to bioimaging to accelerate drug discovery.

Professor Bhaskar Vira, FAcSS, is Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, and Professor of Political Economy at the Department of Geography, a Fellow of Fitzwilliam Colleage, and an Honorary Fellow of St John's College. Trained as an economist, Bhaskar's research focuses on the political economy of land-use and landscape level strategies, water use and management, forest management, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services and human well-being, with a specific focus on South Asia. He works with a number of PhD students and early career researchers on his broad interests in the political economy of environment and development, and has collaborations with colleagues in both academic and non-academic institutions in South Asia and around the world. He is currently leading a major initiative on Decent Work and Youth Livelihoods. He has led large scale applied research projects that involve interdisciplinary conversations across the natural and social services, and contributes regularly to policy advisory processes across the science-policy interface.

Lord Simon Woolley is the Founding Director of Operation Black Vote, the internationally renowned campaigning NGO which he launched in 1996. OBV works with ethnic minorities in the UK to increase understanding of civic society, participation in Parliament and public life, and to promote equality and human rights. Formerly an Equality and Human Rights Commissioner, in 2018 Lord Woolley was appointed by Prime Minister Theresa May to create and lead the UK Government’s pioneering Race Disparity Unit. The Unit collects, analyses and publishes data on how crime, education and health are affected by ethnicity. Fostered and then adopted as a small child, Lord Woolley grew up on a council estate in Leicester, and left school without A-levels. He later returned to formal study via an access course and gained a BA in Spanish and English Literature at Middlesex University and an MA in Hispanic Studies at Queen Mary University of London. He is passionate about educational access and the importance of recognising and supporting marginalised potential. Lord Woolley has a track record of addressing representational imbalances, transforming institutions, and nurturing individuals. His cross-party and cross-sector work with Operation Black Vote has seen the number of MPs from black and minority ethnic backgrounds rise from 4 to 65 over the past two decades. In collaboration with Magdalen College, Oxford, he has been instrumental in the development of Pathway to Success, a programme designed to equip future BME leaders with the tools and knowledge required for senior leadership. Repeatedly recognised in the Black Powerlist, Lord Woolley is dedicated to promoting opportunity for underrepresented communities and individuals, and to building consensus across political and community lines. Simon Woolley was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June 2019 and was created a life peer in December of the same year. He sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Westminster in 2012. He is a regular contributor to newspapers nationally and internationally on topics relating to equality, diversity and social justice.

Professor Eilís Ferran, FBA PhD is Professor of Company and Securities Law at the University of Cambridge, and the Tom Ivory Professorial Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. Eilís has written extensively on UK, EU and international financial regulation, company law and corporate finance law. Her publications include Brexit and Financial Services (Hart Publishing, 2018 (co-authored), The Oxford Handbook of Financial Regulation (OUP, 2015, co-edited) Principles of Corporate Finance Law (OUP, 2014, co-authored) and The Regulatory Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (CUP 2012, co-authored). She has advised UK Parliamentary committees and served as an academic member of the Stakeholder Group of the European Banking Authority. She is a non-executive director of Euroclear SA/NV and is the Chair of its Nominations and Governance Committee. Eilís is a Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary Bencher of Middle Temple. Between 2012 and 2015 she served as Chair of the Law Faculty. Between 2015 and 2021 she was the University's Pro Vice Chancellor for Institutional and International Relations. In that role, she was the academic strategic lead for staff and for significant international partnerships, led the modernisation of career paths, oversaw the University's response as an employer to COVID-19, and was instrumental in the establishment of the Strategic Partnerships Office.

Jade is the Director of Finance at Gates Cambridge. She is responsible for the Trust’s financial and investment functions and is part of the Trust’s senior management team. Prior to joining the Trust, she served as Finance Manager for Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, having previously been Finance Business Partner at the British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council. Jade is a chartered accountant and holds a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

Director of Governance and Compliance, University of Cambridge

Luisa joined Gates Cambridge in October 2015, having previously worked at Cambridge Judge Business School. She brings considerable student recruitment and admissions experience to the team. A graduate of Cardiff University, where she read European Studies, in her spare time Luisa enjoys reading, travel and is a regular Parkrunner on a Saturday. She looks forward to working with the diverse Gates Cambridge community.

Jack joined Gates Cambridge in January 2024, and brings a wealth of experience in community building within a higher education setting. Jack was a member of Darwin College during his PGCE, and also holds a BSc (Biology) and MRes (Risk & Disaster Reduction). In his spare time, Jack enjoys spending time with his young family, traveling, and playing golf.

Carlos joined Gates Cambridge in February 2019 after a nine year stint at the International Programmes Department of Pembroke College, Cambridge University, where he was the Senior Coordinator of the Pembroke-King’s Programme and the Tutor of a group of Spring Semester Programme students. In parallel to that he obtained his PhD on Gothic narrative conventions and Spanish literature of the fin de siècle in Anglia Ruskin University in 2018. In his spare time he enjoys reading crime fiction and he is a big fan of Ian Rankin’s John Rebus novels.

Arianna joined the Gates Cambridge Trust in March 2024, after working at Girton College Library as a Library Assistant since finishing her MPhil in Early Modern History in 2023. During her MPhil, she was a member of St Edmund’s College and an active member of the University’s Jiu-Jitsu club. Prior to moving to Cambridge, Arianna worked for English Heritage, and the St George’s, University of London, library. She graduated with a First Class Honours degree in History from Queen Mary, University of London, in 2021.

As well as working as Gates Cambridge's Communuciations Officer one and half days a week, Mandy works on the Festival of Ideas and the Cambridge Series at the Hay Festival, organising debates and publicising events. Mandy’s background is in education and health journalism. She was features editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement and also worked for the BBC as a senior broadcast journalist as well as for the writers' association International PEN as a researcher on freedom of expression issues.

Usha Virdee joined the Gates Cambridge Trust in March 2009 and holds the position of Accounts Officer. Previously she worked as an Accounts Administrator for Magdalene College. Usha studied Pharmacology at university. She enjoys travelling and visiting many different countries.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, I am very grateful to have had teachers who from early on nurtured my passion for historical inquiry. My research to date has centred around post-imperial projects of world-making and solidarity. As an undergraduate, I investigated postcolonial economic thought in the Caribbean, with a particular focus on Michael Manley, members of the New World Group, and advocacy for the New International Economic Order. During my MPhil, I returned to the topic of the New International Economic Order, examining how various British constituencies responded to this bold programme demanding global economic reform. At Cambridge, I intend to explore an adjacent instance of postcolonial ‘world-making’ by examining how networks and expressions of Afro-Asian solidarity in support of the Black Power movement emerged and evolved – both across the Caribbean and within the United Kingdom. I hope that this research will shed light not only on how intersectional solidarity manifests and operates, but also on the implications of such historical solidarity for contemporary anti-racism movements. I am honoured to be able to pursue this research as part of the Gates Cambridge community.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Economic and Social History 2022
Harvard University History 2021

"Can we print a functional intestine?" This was my first question when I saw how living cells were printed with a 3D printer. It's perhaps oddly specific, but due to Hirschsprung disease, a large part of my intestine was removed when I was a baby, and I spent countless days in the hospital. Therefore, I know how advances in science and technology can dramatically increase patients' quality of life, and these experiences formed my research interest. I first studied physics engineering at the RheinMain University, and then, during my Masters at the University of Freiburg, I fell in love with the field of biofabrication, which also led me to research at Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School. In Cambridge, I will investigate how we can utilize bioprinting to fabricate multi-organ-on-chip systems which potentially can be used for personalized medicine. Next to science, I am passionate about higher-education politics. I believe everybody, regardless of their social and economic background, should have the same opportunities for an education, which is simply not the case yet. I am incredibly honored to join the Gates Cambridge community and deeply grateful to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for their support.

Previous Education

Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg Microsystems Engineering 2022
Hochschule RheinMain (HSRM) Physics Engineering 2018

I studied for a degree in Nutrition as I wanted to help people improve their diets to maintain good health and prevent non-communicable diseases driven by diet and lifestyle. When I worked as a community nutritionist in Malaysia, I learnt that commercial approaches in nutrition, while having their advantages, have their limitations when it comes to improving population health. This sparked my academic interest in Epidemiology, where population-based data is used to investigate the determinants of health and disease to develop population-level preventive strategies. Previously, I have worked on Nutritional Epidemiology projects on ultra-processed foods and obesity, sugar-sweetened beverages and stature loss, as well as vegetarian diets and cancer risk at King's College London, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford, respectively. My PhD research at the MRC Epidemiology Unit will investigate the dietary factors linked to type 2 diabetes with a focus on multi-ethnic Asian populations. Ultimately, I want to work in epidemiology research in Southeast Asia, where I come from, as it is a highly populated and ethnically diverse region that is underrepresented in the scientific literature. I hope that my work could support the development of region-specific population health interventions in Southeast Asia and beyond.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Population Health Sciences 2022
King's College London (University of London) Nutrition 2021

Links

https://www.mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk/people/jia-yi-lee
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiayilee6

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

Working in the Indian Parliament, I saw my ‘research’ translate into social change and action. My academic and work experience spanning the last five years at the intersections of digital technology, the gig economy, and the future of work and caste is motivated by the pursuit of action-oriented research. As a Cambridge Trust and Commonwealth Scholar (2022-23) at the University of Cambridge, I explored the spatial and temporal structures of platform work by placing the gig economy in the caste society of India. This was inspired by my previous work at University of Oxford’s Fairwork Foundation studying platform economy, the Centre for Internet and Society and the Parliament actively contributing to parliamentary interventions advocating the rights of seven million gig workers in India. During my PhD, I wish to take forward my research on caste in the gig economy through an ethnography of home-based platform services. I aim to understand how caste and the structures of the gig economy co-produce each other while reordering social, bodily, and sensorial relations of work. Using ethnographic evidence, I aim to create a better future of work — informing state policies, digital labour platforms, and consumers of the gig economy.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Modern South Asian Studies 2023
University of Delhi Political Science 2021

Links

https://research.sociology.cam.ac.uk/profile/damni-kain-2024
https://www.linkedin.com/in/damni-kain-b21a73220/?originalSubdomain=uk

Out of a wide range of interests, I always return to Classical Studies as a unique mirror for better understanding today’s world. After obtaining a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Latin and Greek at Ghent University, Belgium, the Flemish Government granted me funding (a ‘Fayat’ scholarship) to pursue an MPhil in Classics at Cambridge. I am intrigued by late antiquity – a period of lasting religious, political and sociocultural change. In my PhD, I aim to study two late antique authors, a church leader (Gregory of Nazianzus) and a professor of rhetoric (Ausonius of Bordeaux). With the generous help of Gates Cambridge, I hope to understand how these authors presented themselves in relation to the different places where they lived. Studying place, self-presentation, and migration in late antiquity will hopefully help to nuance our understanding of identity, not only in the past but also today.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Classics 2023
Universiteit Gent (University of Ghent) Linguistics and Literature 2022
Universiteit Gent (University of Ghent) Latin - Greek 2021

Growing up in small-town Germany I developed an interest in foreign languages because I associated with them cultures and places that lay beyond my reach, and which therefore seemed exotic and fascinating. I went on to study general linguistics at the University of Düsseldorf, where I first came into contact with Old English, the language of medieval England before and for some time after the Norman Conquest of 1066. As a consequence of this military and political event, French became an important language in England, replacing Old English - itself the language of previous migrants from the Continent - in some contexts and interacting with it in a way that changed both the French (dialects) of the invaders and the English (dialects) of the conquered. My PhD research is concerned with these linguistic influences, in particular with regard to the orthography and pronunciation of English.Having been a tutor and student representative at my previous university, I am also passionate about widening access to education and fostering community among students.

Previous Education

Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf Linguistics 2022
Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf Linguistics 2019

There is as much poetry in understanding the brain, as there is science. I had the opportunity to pursue both these during my undergraduate degree at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali. After working on Schizophrenia at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, I completed my final year thesis on memory formation at the Indian Institute of Science. My graduate research at Oxford interested me in examining how brain circuits contribute to mood disorders. The ways in which early-life experiences predispose individuals towards mental illnesses require examining changes in a developing brain. In my Ph.D., I hope to explore how such changes in the prefrontal cortex can lead to the early onset of neuropsychiatric disorders, by examining their impacts on behaviours that are commonly dysregulated across these conditions. Through my research, I hope to identify critical periods of development and arrive at a better understanding of specific prefrontal circuits that can be targets of early intervention.

Previous Education

University of Oxford Neuroscience 2023
Indian Institute of Science Ed & Research Mohali Biology 2022

As a Christian who grew up in religious circles, questions about theology and religion have always been on my mind especially as it pertains to the Holy Spirit. This is because I observed how people are often manipulated and exploited by those who claim to be special possessors of the Spirit. I have also observed how churches refuse to engage in matters of social justice in the name of the Spirit. It seems to me that these negative practices thrive mostly on confusion about the identity and activity of the Spirit. This situation troubled me and so I sought to do something about it. My Ph.D. in Theology and Religion aims to change the status quo by explicating and presenting Friedrich Schleiermacher’s doctrine of the Spirit as a viable alternative. Schleiermacher’s doctrine of the Spirit is of particular interest to me precisely because of its simplicity, depth, openness to social engagement, and potential to combat harmful ideas about the Spirit in Christian communities. I also aim to show its relevance for Christian theology and the community of believers both in my country and beyond.

Previous Education

The University of Edinburgh Theology 2024
Theol Col of Northern Nigeria Theology 2023
Theol Col of Northern Nigeria Theology 2021

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 grew up in Jurupa Valley, California and attended the University of California, Riverside, where I completed a Bachelor of Arts in Media and Cultural Studies. My undergraduate education at UCR, combined with my experience as a visiting film studies student at Queen Mary University of London in 2019, provided me with the opportunity to study film in a stimulating interdisciplinary context. Combining sociohistorical and aesthetic methodologies, I developed my academic specialism, which is to analyze film form to interpret symbolism, metaphor, and philosophical meaning with the objective of exploring the representation of women in genre cinema. As a Film and Screen Studies student at Cambridge, I aim to expand upon my undergraduate research to produce scholarship that explores maternal horror in relation to the topics of motherhood, childbearing, and reproductive agency. Alongside my work in the academy, I plan to be a film producer, where I can champion nuanced, women-centered Latinx stories. I am deeply honored to be a Gates Cambridge Scholar and hope to pay it forward by ultimately creating a scholarship program of my own, one designed to provide vital resources and support to the next generation of arts and humanities scholars.

Previous Education

Queen Mary, University of London Study Abroad Program 2020
University of California Riverside Media and Cultural Studies 2020

As a Biochemistry Master’s student, in India, I developed an interest in Plant Sciences. As a Research Fellow, in New Delhi, my research focused on understanding the evolution of photosynthesis, which is useful to plant breeders for varietal trait development and Food Security. Previously, in a collaborative research project at Cambridge, we identified that monocots graft at the root-shoot interface, this pivotal work overturned the long-standing consensus that monocots cannot graft. Further, I am working on translational impact of the grafting approach using perennial monocots, which will be useful in imparting disease resistance in economically relevant crops like banana and oil palms. During my Gates Cambridge PhD Scholarship, I will aim to integrate the most efficient version of photosynthesis, known as the C4 pathway in rice, using the newly developed technique of cereal grafting and hybridisation. Rice is a global food staple and converting rice to use C4 photosynthesis is expected to not only increase yields by 50% but will also enhance water and nitrogen use efficiency. My research vision is to carry out cutting-edge fundamental and translational research that will lead to real impact to farmers both in India and globally.

Previous Education

University of Lucknow Biochemistry 2010
University of Lucknow Botany/Chemistry/Zoology 2008

I was born in Eastern Canada and raised in rural Washington-State in the US. I completed my BS in Computer Science & Data Science, my BA in Sociology, and my MS in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. I had the honor of researching three different branches of Computer Science: (1) AI Bias, Ethics, Fairness, and Governance, (2) Commonsense Reasoning and development in AI, (3) Designing equitable pedagogies in Computer Science curricula, (and anything else that interests me in a manic spur of the moment). I have also had industry experience in AI development at Google Brain, DeepMind, and AI2. During my PhD in Digital Humanities at Cambridge, I hope to research how to effectively legislate AI governance in protection of intersectional identities from the Global South, especially in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. I hope to pursue fieldwork in critical areas that are most adversely-affected by the recent accelerated developments of AI, and research how it is that AI can be universally-regulated to avoid such outcomes. In deep gratitude, I am honored to join the Gates Cambridge community and continue to learn about the humanities’ intersections with technology from scholars of other fields.

Previous Education

University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering 2024
University of Washington Computer Science 2022
University of Washington Sociology 2022

I grew up in Ogun State, Nigeria. My community’s rich heritage in the use of herbal medicines for disease treatment inspired me to study Pharmacy at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where I learned about novel approaches to natural product-based drug discovery. Subsequently, I received a merit-based scholarship for my Master’s degree program in Pharmacognosy. My research focused on the in vitro cytotoxicity of Nigerian medicinal plants used for cancer treatment. Having lost loved ones to cancer, and being challenged by the high rate of cancer mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa, my passion to tackle the scourge of cancer was further consolidated. At Cambridge, my doctoral research will deploy computer-aided-drug-design tools to discover novel plant-derived anticancer molecules. My goal is to develop affordable and effective targeted therapies for treating BRCA-mutant cancers, which would improve the survival and quality of life of patients. I am honored to be a part of the Gates Cambridge community, and I intend to leverage my experience as a Gates Scholar to help expand global access to life-saving medicines.

Previous Education

University of Ibadan Pharmacognosy 2021
University of Ibadan Pharmacy 2016

When my grandfather was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, I was driven to deepen my understanding of human cognition to develop solutions that could help people like him. At The Johns Hopkins University, I pursued a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering, Applied Mathematics and Statistics, and Economics, developing interdisciplinary skills to achieve my goals. Through my research, I explored the largely unknown processes underlying human decision-making under uncertainty. As a Gates Cambridge Scholar, I will pursue a PhD in Engineering, building upon my past research by investigating how humans form internal representations of uncertainty and developing computational models that emulate such representations. Improving our understanding of how the brain tracks uncertainty is crucial to advancing our understanding of human cognition in health and disease, and will pave the way for developing trustworthy and energy-efficient artificial intelligence. While at Cambridge, I will also work to expand STEM outreach initiatives in under-resourced communities and lead dialogue on developing responsible AI regulatory policies. In my free time, I hope to work on my jazz improv skills on the piano!

Previous Education

Johns Hopkins University Biomedical Engineering 2023

I hold a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Nigeria, where I was introduced to the concept of energy efficiency and its significance in improving energy access. Pursuing an MPhil in Energy Technologies offered an opportunity to understand, in-depth, the existing energy systems and evaluation tools in green economies and further explore transferable lessons in energy transition applicable to developing countries like mine. Recognising the impact of energy research in buildings, especially in my country, I am committed to contributing original research that advances our understanding of building energy performance. My proposed PhD research aims to integrate Human-Centric Design principles with energy management systems to minimise operational energy use in buildings. My overarching goal is to leverage my expertise to design efficient and affordable solutions that improve demand-side management in the built environment and address energy access challenges for at-need communities. I am very excited about engaging in the innovative research environment at the EECI lab as a Gates scholar. Through my research endeavours, I aspire to contribute positively to the energy landscape, both in Nigeria and beyond.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Energy Technologies 2024
Federal University of Technology Owerri Mechanical Engineering 2021

I was born in the second largest city located in a desert after Cairo, towards the end of a never-ending dictatorship. Growing up in Lima, I soon learned that Peru was a country which amalgamated many conflicting realities that were not easily reconciled. My drive to address some of these issues and think laterally has been the stimulus for my work as a researcher, journalist, editor and academic consultant. From a young age, my reluctance to yield to well-demarcated routes has broadened my perspectives and motivated me to find my own path while collaborating with others to create change. Covering dictatorship novels, autobiographical writing and the role of emotions in fiction, my three theses have contributed to advance knowledge at the intersection of literature and sociology. At Cambridge, my PhD project will explore how a group of South American authors grappled with pain and dissatisfaction in their artistic and extraliterary experiences through the diary form. By so doing, I hope to shed light on the value of a sentimental approach to adversity in life-writing, as well as the configurations of masculinity that emanate from it. I am deeply indebted to the Gates Cambridge Trust for giving me this unparalleled opportunity.

Previous Education

Universitat de Barcelona Advanced Literary Studies 2022
McGill University Sociology and Hispanic Studies 2020

Growing up in a small town in Bengal, I turned sensitive to conflicts between communities and identities from an early age. While pursuing my BA in English (Hons.) at Presidency University, Kolkata, my MA in English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and my MPhil. in Social Sciences at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, I became interested in how literary and cultural forms share a reciprocal relationship with political ideations and events. As a firm believer in public-facing academic work, I have also curated and written extensively on gender, culture, and literature. Further, teaching undergraduate students at the Jindal Global Law School in India has taught me the transformative potential of pedagogic spaces and the need for an egalitarian academic atmosphere. The steep rise of political incarceration in contemporary India has motivated my doctoral project which traces prison experiences of Indian women activists in literary and archival expressions. Through my scholarship and community engagement, I hope to explore how conditions of marginalisation enable responsibility, solidarity, and hope.

Previous Education

Jadavpur University Social Sciences 2019
Jawaharlal Nehru University English 2017

I arrived at Cambridge in 2012 to pursue an MPhil in Environment, Society and Development to learn how best to negotiate environmental pressures when alleviating poverty through economic growth. I am particularly interested in developing policies that address both extreme poverty and biodiversity loss--two of the most critical challenges of our era. In 2013, I received a second Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue a PhD that addresses climate change policy and environmental justice, and received my PhD in 2017. Before Cambridge, I worked for six years directing international development and conservation initiatives for a coffee importing company. In this role, I raised over $4 million for livelihood improvement programs, some of which were featured at the Clinton Global Initiative and in National Geographic's Wild Chronicles series.

At the University of Cambridge, I studied the political economy of health. During my PhD, I studied the link between privatisation policies and increased alcohol-related mortality rates. I have worked in health and healthcare research since I completed my studies because I am passionate about health and healthcare and I believe that we can use our achievements in science and technology to improve people's health all over the world. As a Gates Cambridge alumna, I strive to make people believe they can create change and improve not only their own lives but also the lives of others.

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/darja-irdam-b76365158

I work as a management consultant with a focus on healthcare, mostly in life sciences. My work uses a variety of data sources to understand customer needs and improve my client's efforts toward patient centricity in the products and services they offer. I'm a passionate believer that analytics and human-centered design should inform strategy.

I also am a leader in my firm's internal think-tank, focused on tackling big topics that impact people's healthcare. We leverage a variety of data sources and market research from around to world to study topics in public health, healthcare disruption, digital transformation, and medical development.

Previous Education

Auburn University BS Microbiology/ BA German 2012

Dr. Dzeng is a sociologist and hospitalist physician conducting research at the nexus of sociology, medical ethics, palliative and end-of-life care, and human-centered design. She is an Assistant Professor at UCSF in the Division of Palliative Medicine and Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sociology program. She is an affiliated faculty member of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies and a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health based at the Global Brain Health Institute at UCSF's Memory and Aging Center. She completed her PhD in Medical Sociology and an MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge at King’s College as a Gates Cambridge Scholar and was a General Internal Medicine post-doctoral clinical research fellow and palliative care research fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. As an undergraduate and engineering graduate student at Stanford, she participated in the first class of Stanford's Biodesign Innovation program where she co-invented and patented a device to non-invasively cool the heart through the esophagus to prevent myocardial damage during a myocardial infarction (US Patent 7,758,623; 2010). In August, 2019 this patent was licensed to Attune Medical.Her current research examines the influence of neoliberalism and specifically the culture and ethical implications of neoliberalism on an institution's ethical priorities in the United States and United Kingdom and its effects on the provision of non-beneficial high-intensity life-sustaining treatments near the end of life in older adults with dementia and serious illness. This research builds on her doctoral research which explored the influence of institutional cultures and policies on physicians’ ethical beliefs and how that impacts the way they communicate in end of life decision-making conversations. Through a comparative ethnography employing semi-structured in-depth interviews and participant observation, Dr. Dzeng seeks to understanding the macro-, meso-, and micro-sociological factors (and in particular ethical decision-making climate) that contribute to potentially non-beneficial high-intensity care near the end of life. Using this ethnographic data, she will subsequently co-design a systems-level intervention using human-centered design to mitigate the culture of burdensome end-of-life care.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge MPhil in Development Studies 2008
Johns' Hopkins University MPH, Public Health, MD, Medicine 2007
Stanford University BS, Biology, MS, Chemical Engineering 2003

The focus of my MBA is international entrepreneurship, as well as its socially transformative role. Previously, I studied philosophy and law, and worked as a clerk to an appellate Justice, then as a diplomat and trade negotiator. I have very broad interests, so I'm looking forward to learning from the diverse range of talented, excited, people I will meet at Cambridge. I hope to collaborate with others to identify new opportunities at a university famed for its innovation in a wide variety of fields, including in applied sciences.

My research strives to unravel the complexities inherent in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. With a passion for medical science, I moved south from Ohio to study biomedical engineering at the University of South Carolina, where I became increasingly intrigued by the human body as I worked on projects to provide elegant solutions to complex health problems. With a particular interest in Alzheimer’s disease, I utilized an array of biophysical techniques to investigate compounds found in diets around the world and their potential to suppress protein aggregation in the brain. My fascination with the extent to which small molecules influence disease led me to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where I instigated the beginnings of a project aiming to detect chemical exposures in the workplace and improve safety therein. Returning to research in the molecular processes underlying protein misfolding disorders, I joined the Centre for Misfolding Diseases as a Whitaker International Program Fellow to work under the supervision of Professor Chris Dobson. I now continue to apply my chemical, biological, and computational background to further investigate the folding and misfolding of proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. Outside of the lab, I enjoy introducing young students to the world of science through varied teaching and community outreach programs, as well as pursuing my interest in studying financial structures and markets.

Previous Education

University of South Carolina
University of Cambridge

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryangeiser

Science policy and administration expert with a focus on research and development management, quantum technologies. data management and international relations.

Links

https://www.visnea.org/team
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-pawlowska-a77ab334

I studied my PhD at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge from 2017 to 2021. On August 2025 I will start my role as Assistant Professor at Arizona State University. Here is the biography I submitted as an incoming Gates Scholar. My experience in life taught me not to conform with the stereotypes imposed by those in power. I believe that every person can achieve greatness and should be allowed to fulfill their dreams. Being a Mexican, I see science as the means to take down the walls built by those trying to divide us, empower people to make informed decisions and appreciate that all lives have equal value. My passion for science transformed into a deep curiosity to understand our universe and the conditions that allowed for our existence. My desire to understand the world took me from Mexico to Canada where I became the first person at the University of Calgary to finish two majors in physics and astrophysics in four years. Later, I joined Dr. Rachid Ouyed and his group to study the Quark Nova, its astronomical signatures and implications. Now in Cambridge, I am honoured to join Dr. Nikku Madhusudhan and his group in studying and characterizing the atmospheres of exoplanets. We are as close as we have ever been to understanding our place in the universe and the uniqueness of our existence. The quest for habitable planets thrills me and I believe that this excitement is shared with the rest of humanity. My path to becoming a Gates-Cambridge scholar has not been linear and I owe a large amount of gratitude to every person who believed in me and helped me become who I am. I hope this opportunity will allow me to inspire others to pursue their goals and create scientific opportunities in Latin America.

Previous Education

University of Calgary

Links

https://luiswelbanks.com