Current Scholars

Born in a family of doctors in India, I grew up looking at the world through a lens of seasoned physicians battling to save lives in resource-poor settings. While the academic in me developed an insatiable curiosity about the biological mechanisms of diseases, the social activist in me realized that exploring drivers of diseases at a population level is important to solve global health problems. My graduate studies at IIT Bombay and University of Cambridge cemented this understanding; extensive field research and work experience with UNICEF impressed upon me the importance of translating research findings into actionable evidence. My PhD seeks to explore the nutritional, lifestyle and metabolic risk factors of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in South Asians; integrating clinical knowledge, statistics and public health. South Asians, constituting a fourth of the global population, experience a disproportionately high burden of these diseases, aggravated by inequities in biological risk, behavioural factors and access to health services. Through my research I wish to comprehensively examine the importance of modifiable risk factors in mitigating cardiometabolic disease risks in this population and inform country-specific policies and disease prevention strategies.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Epidemiology 2021
Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay Technology and Development 2019
West Bengal University of Technology Biotechnology 2017

My research uses network analysis and other quantitative methods to study police misconduct and related phenomena. In particular, I am interested in developing methods to identify both misconduct-prone officers and officers who are resilient to negative peer influences. Additionally, my research examines how sanctions for misconduct and other official responses affect future misconduct. My other research interests include progressive prosecution and the intersections of local government law and criminal justice reform.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Criminological Research 2021
Williams College Political Science and Math 2020

My passion for astronomy has been an integral part of most of my life: as I realized at the age of 12 that current theories only explain 5% of the cosmos, making a scientific contribution that would shed light on the dark sector of cosmology became my main career goal. Several years later, this unwavering curiosity motivated my Honours thesis centred on the calibration of the CHIME telescope. I then collaborated with the H0LiCOW team, analysing lensed quasars as probes of the Hubble constant, before focusing on the use of machine learning to search for deviations from general relativity in gravitational waves. While studying quantum field theory, I became fascinated by the interconnectedness between the smallest and largest scales of the universe, a central issue in inflationary physics. My PhD will aim to detect signatures of primordial gravitational waves in the CMB and constrain models of the early universe. Despite the abstract nature of my topic, I hope for my research to make a broader impact through the development of computational methods with a wide range of applications. Becoming a Gates Scholar is a great honour which will also allow me to build upon my experience with science outreach and advocating for women in STEM.

Previous Education

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Physics 2021
University of British Columbia Physics 2019
Ecole Polytechnique federale de lausanne Physics 2019

Growing up in bucolic Connecticut, I am the girl who saved ants from being squished on the playground, the girl who sat still for hours waiting for a dragonfly to land on my nose. My fate was sealed from an early age: I am an insect lover. As an undergraduate at Pomona College, I studied the impacts of habitat fragmentation, urbanization, and fire on pollinator assemblages. In a time of intense land use change, I am interested in how targeted habitat modifications can help conserve insect diversity. For example, planting native wildflowers next to monocrop agricultural fields enhances bee habitat, increases bee abundances, and may also improve crop yields. I am passionate about igniting sustainable action through education. I am committed to mentoring the next generation to preserve insect biodiversity. With my PhD in Zoology, I hope to become a professor. In the long-term, I aspire to work with global organizations such as the United Nations to champion agricultural mitigation efforts that may be adopted worldwide, allowing pollinators and humans to more harmoniously coexist. I am honored to be selected as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, joining an extraordinary community of learners committed to promoting positive change worldwide.

Previous Education

Pomona College Biology 2022

I have always been fascinated in how to approach complex problems. This fascination first led me to study Civil Engineering as an undergraduate, and Engineering for Sustainable Development as a graduate, where I was able to gain skills that would allow me to contribute to real challenges in the world. Over recent years, I have put these skills into practice while working with NGOs and the International Committee of the Red Cross in countries affected by disaster or conflict in southern and eastern Africa and the Middle East. During these experiences, I have seen how challenging it can be to respond to complex urban crises where, over time, the additional strain on services and the eventual degradation of public infrastructure compounds the likelihood of wide-scale public health crises. At Cambridge, my research will explore how to strengthen the resilience of essential infrastructure and services in fragile urban contexts which are faced by a convergence of protracted insecurity, climate risks, and environmental degradation. I am honoured to have been selected for a Gates Cambridge Scholarship and I look forward to joining a cohort of inspirational leaders and scholars who are contributing to real change in this world.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Eng. for Sust. Development 2017
University of British Columbia Civil Engineering 2013

I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and completed my B.Sc. in Biochemistry at Covenant University, Nigeria. My research interest is in the mechanisms that control body weight and how they can be exploited to improve obesity outcomes. Metabolic diseases, like obesity and diabetes, are a significant health challenge affecting millions of people globally. During my undergraduate study, I developed a keen interest in the interplay of biological processes and lifestyle in the pathophysiology of metabolic diseases. Moreover, growing up in Africa where the rates are alarmingly rising with sub-minimal health research output and public policy efforts strengthened my resolve to address these challenges. At Cambridge, I will study the mechanisms by which gut hormones control body weight and blood sugar levels aiming to develop treatments that modulate gut hormone signaling. This fascinates me because these strategies present the most promising therapeutic avenue to combat the obesity epidemic. I hope to contribute to the development of biomedical infrastructure that can alleviate the burden of metabolic diseases in Africa. I am honoured to be part of the Gates Cambridge community and hope to leverage the platform to pursue my goals and impact lives.

Previous Education

Covenant University Biochemistry 2020

I was raised in Marion, Arkansas and attended the University of Georgia as a Foundation Fellow and Stamps Scholar to study genetics. I devoted much of my time on campus to researching protein kinases using bioinformatic and biochemical approaches and working as a campus tour guide. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I began researching developmental lung biology at Vanderbilt. I quickly realized my interest at the intersection of developmental and cancer biology and the wide therapeutic potential the field offers. As an aspiring physician-scientist, I also took time to research public health in my home region as a Delta Scholar and wrote for the Boston Congress of Public Health. At Cambridge, I will pursue a PhD in the Department of Physiology, Development, and Neuroscience to functionally assess the cell extrinsic and intrinsic mechanisms controlling human lung airway fate specification. Through this research, I hope to deepen our understanding of fundamental biological processes to guide personalized medical therapies that are accessible to all populations. I am grateful to be joining the Gates Cambridge community and am honored to have been selected for a cohort in which intellectual acumen and compassion are equally valued.

Previous Education

University of Georgia Genetics, Minor in Statistics 2022

I grew up in North Carolina and London, determined from a young age to disallow what I saw as unjust, particularly when it befell my childhood peers. This innate desire kindled in me a dedication to equitable education and mental health care. Earning my BA in psychology at Colgate University, with minors in education and creative writing, I seized opportunities to work directly with youth, an ardent believer in the importance of meeting children where they are and understanding their diverse needs as they learn to exert agency in response to the complexities of the ever-agitated world. I conducted research in the US, UK, Ghana, Samoa, and among several refugee communities, driven by increasing rates of mental illness and decreasing age of onset — both exacerbated by the global pandemic. After graduation, I joined the Center for Autism Research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. My PhD, a coalescence of my experiences, will focus on effectively supporting youth at the community level and within contexts of demographics, neurodiversity, and personal/political disruption. Understanding which interventions are beneficial long-term for children with internalising difficulties will enable individualised optimisation of care.

Previous Education

Colgate University Psychology 2021

The goal of my PhD research is to explore prosody (stress, rhythm, intonation) and socioeconomic status as factors influencing the development of reading abilities, and I am particularly interested in silent reading (implicit prosody). During my undergraduate studies in English Language and Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, I was exposed to aspects of first and second language acquisition, and as an Erasmus+ student at the University of Edinburgh, I became increasingly interested in language processing and psycholinguistics. During my MPhil in Applied Linguistics at Trinity College Dublin, I focused on dyslexia, prosodic processing, and Computer-Assisted Language Learning. By investigating reading abilities among typically developing readers, my aim is to shed light on the role of prosodic processing and production in reading comprehension, to unveil the impact of hidden socioeconomic inequalities on literacy acquisition, and to investigate the extent to which reading difficulties remain undiagnosed. This research will aid in the diagnosis and the development of accommodations for reading difficulties and a more thorough understanding of how these difficulties can go undetected by educators.

Previous Education

University of Dublin Trinity College Applied Linguistics 2020
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki English Language & Literature 2018

Links

https://linktr.ee/ct620
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ct620

I have always had a fascination for how ‘education’ is designed. But it was an unlikely success story from North India that brought this diffused interest into sharp focus in the form of child-centric education. The story was that of an NGO running non-formal (alternative) schools for children living in slums. Every year, its makeshift schoolrooms would see child labourers become advocates for completion of schooling, the ‘reverse-education’ of illiterate parents through their children, and students outperforming their peers upon entering formal (mainstream) schools. The principle at the heart of this NGO: child-centricity.Across the country are many such scattered initiatives solving globally-prioritised problems of access, retention, and quality that nations have grappled with for decades. Studying similar efforts so as to identify patterns in their success could reveal how schools may be better designed to serve children from low-income families, with the particularities of their needs and circumstances.My PhD research will compare how non-formal and formal schools empower such children, identifying the factors that influence their academic, social, and economic agency. Holding potential solutions to the policy-practice gap in India and wider developing contexts, this research will be a step towards my hope of helping to pave the way to more child-centric, context-sensitive education systems that better serve all by serving those most at risk.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Education (EGID) 2020
The University of Edinburgh Social Policy (with SPS) 2019

Growing up in Asia and North America, I have always felt contradicting experiences of identity, one that oscillates between the desire to belong in a new country and the desire to remember my home roots, while ultimately finding myself not fully accepted in either. From a young age, I used my personal experiences as an opportunity to make sense of the world, and to unpack the societies I moved through. Between academic degrees, I worked on issues of reforestation, gender and social equity in forest landscapes, and land resettlement and reparations in Asia, North America, and Europe. My studies and work has allowed me to develop my current research interests, which focus on the intersection between environment and social justice. My research is centered on practices of environmental justice and resistance, which serve as broader social struggles for freedom and land recognition and reclamation. Through my research, I hope to share public-facing knowledge and flatten the power hierarchies between how "research" is credited and produced, and to translate scholarship in ways that are accessible and useful within and outside the academy.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Sociology 2020
McGill University Honours Geography 2017

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 drawn into the curious and complex world of immunology during my Honours degree in the Horsnell group at the University of Cape Town, where I studied lung pathology in the acute immune response to helminth infections. This, against my background as a clinician and further education in public health, has led my professional interests towards the intersection of these three areas: fundamental science, clinical medicine and population health. By identifying important health concerns and addressing them across scales, I hope to improve global health outcomes through my career in a cost-effective and context-relevant manner which prioritises reaching under-served people. In partnership with global leaders in the field, my PhD aims to develop and test a novel vaccine platform to generate broadly-protective vaccines against Betacoronaviruses. The idea underlying this work is ‘pandemic preparedness’ – aiming to ensure the next human viral pandemic is comparatively minor by pre-emptively improving the breadth and efficacy of available vaccines. I am privileged to be joining the Gates Cambridge community, and am very grateful to the Trust for this wonderful opportunity.

Previous Education

University of Cape Town Public Health (Epi & Biostats) 2022
University of Cape Town Medicine 2017
University of Cape Town Infectious Disease, Immunology 2014

Growing up in eastern Kentucky, in the heart of the Appalachian region of the United States, I was fascinated by questions of meaning in life and devastated by the hardship I witnessed at home and abroad. Education has been my ticket to exploring these two themes: meaning and inequity. With generous support through the Brown Fellows Program, I immersed myself in the liberal arts and sciences at Centre College, studying neuroscience and mathematics as well as philosophy and religion. I lived as a monastic for a summer in a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan, investigated crime scenes and defended the underserved in Washington, DC, and carried out a final-year thesis on spiritual memoirs and autobiographies. After examining the association between the immune system and mental illness through the MPhil in Epidemiology at Cambridge, I joined research teams at Dartmouth College, where we have explored self-regulation as a mechanism of behaviour change and conducted policy-focused research on the US opioid crisis. During my PhD I will address a critical question: Given similar histories of adversity, why do some children do better than others? Studying resilience may help us improve well-being and could lead toward greater health and educational equity. I look forward to working with others in the Gates Cambridge community as we explore fundamental life questions and help others thrive.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Master of Philosophy Epidemiology 2015
Centre College Bachelor of Science Behavioral Neuroscience 2014

Links

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-tyJuPAAAAAJ&hl=en
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenmetcalf

Growing up in New York City and South India, I developed a lifelong appreciation for biodiversity and curiosity about global change. I completed my B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, where I conducted research on South and Southeast Asian mammal biogeography. Upon graduating in 2020, I worked on COVID-19 response at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. This work experience, supplemented by my academic background in organismal biology, led me to explore the human-wildlife interface where viral spillover occurs. I am now pursuing a PhD in Biology at the Department of Veterinary Medicine at Cambridge. My thesis centers on the relationship between ecology and viral emergence, with a focus on zoonotic paramyxoviruses in fruit bats. I am particularly interested in the use of natural history museum collections for viral surveillance and host prediction. I strongly believe in accessible and inclusive science, especially in the form of creative science communication and outreach. I look forward to collaborating with the Gates Cambridge community to tackle pressing issues at the intersection of public and planetary health.

Previous Education

Yale University Ecology & Evolutionary Biology 2020

Links

http://mayajuman.github.io

I came to anthropology through an interest in narrative, and a desire to rethink my engagement with fiction, life writing, reportage, and research – writing forms that I have been moving between since I was an undergraduate. As a journalist and a university teacher, I often found myself returning to read ethnographies, with their focus on producing work that centred our different subjectivities, and grappling with the ethical and conceptual challenges of navigating these. So far, my research has been concerned with the political lives of Indian students, what Indian higher educational spaces engender, and who they exclude. For my PhD, I hope to trace how young people from ‘Northeast’ India navigate the moral and affective aspects of their ‘becoming’ when they travel to ‘mainland’ Indian cities to study. Given the region’s history of state repression, ethnic tensions, and the racialised tendency of many Indians to homogenise their identities, I am interested in foregrounding friendship, intimacy, and aspiration, to understand how these young students relate to each other from across their social subjectivities and ethnic and class locations. I’m excited and humbled to be part of the Gates Cambridge community, and to continue to be challenged by and learn from my peers.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Social Anthropology 2022
School of Oriental & African Studies (University o Gender Studies 2018
St. Joseph's College, BU English, Journalism,Psychology 2017

I am curious about the ways people understand and create discourses around environmental issues. As an undergraduate—first at Brandeis University, then, after transferring, at Harvard University—I studied environmental challenges and became immersed in the expansive discipline of Science and Technology Studies. Simultaneously, I developed a love of journalism, particularly radio storytelling. In the years following my undergraduate education, I cultivated both of these interests. I worked with Schmidt Futures to understand and support effective philanthropic approaches at the intersection of science, technology, and society. I also worked as a reporter at KOTO, the community radio station in Telluride, CO. Reporting for a small mountain region during a global pandemic gave me firsthand appreciation for the ways journalism can foster community. But I’m also uncertain how journalism can help humanity face larger environmental challenges. As climate change alters our world, I believe unifying and clarifying storytelling will be all the more essential. I hope to use this MPhil in Anthropocene Studies to examine the roles journalists can and should play in helping people understand and respond to climate change.

Previous Education

Harvard University Env. Science & Public Policy 2019
Brandeis University Environmental Studies 2017

My research focuses on the role of stories and storytelling to identity-formation within contexts of postcolonial migration. Growing up in Australia, in an Indian and Malaysian family, and now, studying in the UK, I have always been interested in how people, ideas, and stories travel through former imperial circuits. I am hoping to investigate how stories inform and construct identities, how stories are entangled with legacies of empire, and how various communities use stories to disrupt existing narratives of migration or colonialism. Through creative research methods such as food ethnography and music elicitation, I am specifically interested in forms of culinary and sonic storytelling.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Sociology 2021
Sciences PO, Institut d'etudes politiques de Paris Middle Eastern 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

At heart, I’m a runner who finds the time to study theoretical physics: although in reality, it’s often the other way around. Growing up in the sun, sand and bush of Perth, Western Australia, I uncovered a passion for science – which took me across the country to the Australian National University in Canberra. I lived at Bruce Hall, and helping the community there survive our building being demolished and rebuilt instilled in me a love of working with people. At the same time, my studies fostered an excitement for uncovering a theory of quantum gravity; but it became apparent I’d have to travel overseas to fulfil that dream. Thus, I came to Cambridge to complete the Part III Maths, and prepare myself for a PhD here. In my PhD, I’ll be studying and proposing thought experiments examining quantum gravity, to inform how we build theories in future. I ultimately want to combine my passions for people and physics as an educator, and take ideas about quantum gravity to places (like Australia) where the field is still very small. Being a Gates Scholar will allow me to learn from other scholars how to make my impact as an educator felt not just in Australia, but all over the world.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Mathematics 2022
Australian National University Physics 2020

Since my first biology lessons in school I have been fascinated by understanding nature and I have steadily developed the strong ambition to become a scientific researcher. I undertook my Bachelor’s and Master’s study in biochemistry at Free University of Berlin, where my research mainly focused on protein folding homeostasis during aging and neurodegenerative diseases in particular of Huntington’s disease. For my PhD I am going to join the laboratory of David Ron at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, where I will study cellular adaptations to the stress of unfolded and misfolded proteins in the secretory pathway. The unfolded protein response (UPR) defends protein folding homeostasis in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) by matching the folding capacity to the unfolded protein load in the compartment. This simple feedback process impacts the function of the secretory pathway and because protein secretion is central to intercellular communication, ER stress and the response to it influences many physiological and pathophysiological processes. With this research I hope to identify new components of this regulatory network to integrate these into an understanding of the pathophysiology of common human diseases, which may one day pave the way for pharmacological intervention in UPR signalling. I am truly honoured to become a member of the Gates Cambridge family and look forward to connecting to other scholars that share the motivation to actively shape our future.

Previous Education

Free University of Berlin Biochemistry 2018
Free University of Berlin Biochemistry 2015