Directory

This year at the University of Cambridge, I will be receiving an MPhil in Social and Developmental Psychology under the supervision of Dr. Claire Hughes. During my time in Cambridge I will be working on Dr. Hughes' "Toddlers and Up" project, a longitudinal study that examines young children's learning profiles. By looking at young children with high levels of inhibition and social anxiety, I hope to compare their performance on executive function tasks to their more outgoing peers.

Understanding the deep foundations of our universe has excited me since before I can remember, and as I grew and developed, so did my affinity for science. Physics in particular has and continues to captivate me as it tackles the most fundamental principles governing the natural world. Bridging the antipodean gap from New Zealand to study for a PhD in physics at Cambridge is a childhood dream come true.My project will use state-of-the-art photonics to observe interactions between metals and molecules in real-time, giving unprecedented insights into catalysis and other essential reactions on which our world depends. Expanding our understanding in these areas can open new avenues toward improving energy efficiency and minimising waste in ubiquitous industrial processes. I hope to use the gifts granted to me to meaningfully contribute to this field.I am especially excited to live and work at the centre of a multidisciplinary intellectual and cultural hub. Grappling with critical contemporary issues requires more than just advances in physics or engineering, but the best ideas from all disciplines. As a Gates Scholar, I get to be a part of a diverse community in which this collaboration can happen, and I could not be more thrilled.

After graduating from Cambridge’s Development Studies M.Phil. programme in 2002, I worked at Public Citizen and CEPR in DC. There, I worked to ensure that U.S. policies allow countries to grow adequately and sustainably. In the fall of 2012, I will begin writing my PhD dissertation on the implications of the investor-state dispute settlement system for development policy. Few social scientists have studies this mechanism – whereby corporations can sue governments over financial and environmental policies. Rightsizing these agreements – mostly written before recent natural and man-made disasters reminded us of the virtues of sensible public interest safeguards – will be one of the central tasks for international governance in the 21st century. I hope to help train the next generation of policymakers, business leaders and advocates on how to design democratically accountable and effective global solutions to our most pressing problems, from climate change to income inequality.

I am interested in understanding the relationship between genes and disease. At Cambridge I studied the genetics of type 1 diabetes with Professor John Todd. After Cambridge I pursued a MD/PhD at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine focusing on regulation and function of miR-26 in normal physiology and tumorigenesis. I am currently an internal medicine resident at Massachusetts General Hospital