Directory

During a BSc in Biology at Utrecht University, I became especially interested in protein structure. The images of 3D structures that could exhibit mechanical movement to drive biological processes captivated me. Hence, I followed this interest by doing an internship in a research institute in Berlin during a gap year. That year I also travelled by car from the Netherlands to China and experienced first-hand the social challenges faced by LGBTQI communities along the way. This sparked an interest in human rights in the Middle East and Central Asia. And during my subsequent MSc in Molecular and Cellular Life Sciences, I actively engaged in advocacy and activism with a Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights organisation. As part of my MSc, I worked in a research group at Utrecht University and at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge. In the latter, I focused on an approach that has only recently become possible – to study the structure of multi-protein complexes by cryo-electron microscopy. Visualizing the structure of these large molecular machines is fascinating and can considerably aid drug development for disease-causing protein variants. I am excited to continue this research at the LMB during a PhD in Biological Sciences. I will study the structure of “two-legged” proteins that can physically walk along fibres inside our cells. Furthermore, I remain a human rights advocate and look forward to joining the diverse and proactive Gates Cambridge community.

Previous Education

Utrecht University

I am a criminologist and applied social psychologist interested in the intersections between law and psychology. My current research includes studies of group crime, effect evaluations of various crime prevention programs, and related projects in the area of forensic psychology.

As an undergraduate at Duke University majoring in Public Policy and minoring in Psychology and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, I have focused on using policy for the advancement of gender equality, whether through combatting campus sexual assault, advocating for transgender rights in Ecuador, or increasing menstrual product access for girls and women in Kenya and the US. I recently completed my honors thesis on sex work in Ecuador and Argentina, examining the importance of physical workspaces to sex workers’ conditions and how states regulate sex work space. Through the MPhil in Development Studies at Cambridge, I plan to further study how states and citizens negotiate space in cities and explore methods for combatting poverty in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. I am honored to have been selected to become a member of the Gates-Cambridge community.

Previous Education

Duke University

Previous Education

University of Twente M.Sc Computer Science 2001

I have had a rather eclectic academic career, and have worked across several different areas of the humanities and social sciences in different countries around the globe. In light of the deteriorating climate crisis, my research has progressively shifted towards the environmental sciences, with a special focus on the study of the cryosphere.In my doctoral research, I will study “climate intervention” projects that have been suggested to help preserve elements of the cryosphere in the Arctic and the “Third Pole”. As global temperatures continue to rise, and effective emissions reductions fail to materialise, I foresee that such proposals to artificially interfere in the climate through technoscientific means will increasingly move onto the main stage of climate debates. Many of these schemes are however far from exemplary as postcolonial scientific projects, and the debates around them are highly polarised. During my doctoral studies I therefore hope to further the knowledge of such climate intervention projects, explore their influence on the public perception of climate change, and to facilitate debates on their relation to climate justice.

Previous Education

University Paris-Saclay & UVSQ Arctic Science 2022
Rijksuniversiteit Leiden (Leiden Univ) History 2017

I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of History, University of Basel, Switzerland.
For details on my research and publications, please visit https://unibasel.academia.edu/DanellevanZylHermann

My research and general interests centre around biodiversity and nature. Specifically, I am interested in the functional consequences of biodiversity change. I use functional traits (traits of organisms that are related to how they interact with their environment, such as flat claws for digging) and ecological modelling techniques to measure changes in functional diversity through space and time. My postdoc at OSU seeks to test how small mammal functional diversity changed in the face of climate instability before and after the extinction of large mammals (e.g. mammoths). My other projects aim to test how amphibian communities are structured over large land masses and to quantify the functional impact of amphibian declines due to threats like invasive species.

In my PhD, I researched how sources of variation such as sex or season affects the skin thickness of amphibians to better understand if skin physiology might explain the disproportionately high number of amphibian species threatened with extinction. Before my PhD, I studied the functional traits of fossil species to better understand the ecology of dinosaurs.

Born in Utah, I was raised the oldest of six siblings first there and then just outside of Portland, Oregon. "Unschooled" until the age of 16 my foray into traditional education began with a handful of highschool classes, and then a dive into Spanish language, music and biology at the local community college, where I quickly developed a taste for academic work. As a non-traditional student I graduated first with an AAOT in General Studies from Clackamas Community College and then with honors from Pacific University in 2008, where I received a B.A. in Politics and Government. After graduation I lived and worked in the Alta Verapaz of Guatemala where I developed an interest in women's leadership education and the ongoing interactions between globalized western culture, local cultures and the evolution of ancient traditions.

I am a scientist and singer pursuing an MPhil at the Cambridge Centre for Music and Science. At Princeton University, I majored in neuroscience with a certificate in vocal performance. As a student of both neuroscience and music, I have always been interested in the scientific study of music’s effects on mind and body. While a dominant narrative within music and medicine focuses on music’s therapeutic effects during the illness state, I am interested in further exploring its impact on healthy individuals, from the perspective of music as a tool to enhance community health. One of the most unique stages of life during which music can exert its effects is in early infancy, when mothers and families of infants can expose their children to an enriching musical environment, which has been shown time and again to have benefits for infants along various developmental avenues. At Cambridge my research will specifically examine the reciprocal effects of infant-directed singing on mother and child, looking at how such music modulates physiological arousal/stress. I plan on pursuing a medical career and hope to engage with community music programs that operate out of healthcare settings throughout my life. In my time at Cambridge I also look forward to participating in its vibrant choral tradition.

Previous Education

Princeton University

After Cambridge I returned to my job as an environmental policy consultant in Washington, DC. In 2004, I took an economic policy job with the Senate Minority Leader, Tom Daschle. After Senator Daschle completed his final term, I became Economic Development Director for Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota.

I was born in Prague and grew up in Geneva. Following a BSc in Mathematical Physics at the University of Edinburgh, I undertook an MSc in Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London. During my MSc project, I became fascinated by the connectome – a holistic description of brain connectivity, which can be studied using complex network theory. Subsequently, I obtained a research assistant position at the University Hospital of Lausanne in Switzerland to study connectome alterations in psychiatric disease. Although most psychiatric disorders emerge in adolescence, our limited understanding of brain development during this period hinders our ability to identify maturational aberrations. This has motivated my desire to undertake a PhD in Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, to study development of the connectome in adolescence using complex network theory.

What does education do? What roles does education play in shaping people’s identities, values and lifeworlds? Having worked as a teacher, a political consultant and a program manager with state education departments in India, I have been keen to derive a deeper understanding of what education does. My first book, titled “The Smart and the Dumb”, takes a journalistic view of how education and culture intersect in India and is due for release in early 2023 by Penguin Randomhouse. My PhD research will focus on how elite education in India creates and reproduces caste and class identities. Through my research, I hope to unpack the mechanisms of how identities reproduce and manifest themselves in new forms through education and how elites contribute to these dynamics.

Previous Education

Harvard University International Education Policy 2020
Anna University Mechanical Engineering 2016

After completing my graduate studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, I have worked in the culture industry of India, focusing on contemporary art of South Asia as a researcher, critic, and curator. Being involved with organisations that challenge authoritarianism, I am interested in how art and activism intersect in powerful and necessary ways. My learning in art has been shaped by ‘doing’—working with artists and collectives, working against capitulatory institutions, and working towards sites of freedom. It is a mode of learning driven by shared spaces, cross-disciplinary pollination and open pedagogies such as reading groups, writing workshops, and public seminars. Such formats of ‘thinking with’ are integral to my scholarship. My research on the mediatic transfers between the photographic and painted image emerging from cites of civic resistance in India will chart a history of lively contestation over notions of the public sphere, articulations of dissent, acts of collective organising, and assertions of difference. By engaging with the history of civic action from below, I hope to draw vital insights into the evolving political ecology of resistance, and its cultural afterlife as image and icon.

Children have an innate ability to bring joy to and captivate those around them with their vitality and innocence. My passion for paediatric health and welfare stems from their resilience and eternal optimism - improving the lives of children is my core belief and central motivation for paediatric oncology. I derive my childhood and education from Australia, cultural heritage from India and passion for children’s healthcare and equity of access from both. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science, Medicine and Surgery from the University of New South Wales, and Masters in Medicine from the University of Sydney. Currently I am a clinical fellow with the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, developing new treatments for refractory cancers, having previously trained in paediatrics and haematology/oncology with Sydney Children’s Hospital. My research in Cambridge will focus on childhood leukaemia, and explore the role quiescent cancer stem cells play in refractory and relapsed disease. My greater goal is to continue paediatric stem cell research in Australia as a clinician scientist.

Previous Education

University of Sydney
University of New South Wales

Previous Education

University of Notre Dame Bachelor of Architecture 2013

As an undergraduate at Kansas State University double majoring in Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, I worked in the lab of Dr. Kathrin Schrick where I pursued multiple independent projects. I used biophysical tools to characterize direct targets of dietary flavonoids, which are abundantly found in fruits and vegetables and are known to possess anti-cancerous properties. This project emerged from my quest to understand protein-flavonoid interactions. As the only person conducting this research, I had to teach myself a lot of different techniques and face numerous challenges, but in the process I developed a great love and appreciation for the visualization of protein structures. During my PhD in the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), I will be using electron cryo-microscopy to uncover new structures of activated states of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Over 40% of commercially available drugs target GPCRs; therefore, it is important to understand their structures to design new drugs to treat a variety of human diseases. I am very excited to contribute to advances in electron cryo-microscopy, and I am grateful for this opportunity to work alongside and learn from world-class scientists in the LMB. Besides science, I enjoy working towards bridging global health disparities. I have worked with MEDLIFE in Peru and Ecuador, and I also run my own non-profit WE SAVE in India where we are developing technology to connect doctors with underserved patients.

Previous Education

Kansas State University

It is a great honor for me to be a Gates scholar, to have studied at the University of Cambridge. Bearing in mind that the policy of the trust is to help people, it is also a great responsibility for me in the future. I am very grateful for the help I have received from the trust in the hardship I was going through during my studying at Cambridge.