Directory

I completed my PhD in oncology under the supervision of Prof Rebecca Fitzgerald at the Early Cancer Institute, Department of Oncology. My work mostly focuses on the epidemiology, early detection, and prevention of gastrointestinal cancers, including pre-malignant conditions. I have experience working with large population-based cohorts, designing molecular epidemiology studies, and applying bioinformatic tools to better understand processes that drive cancer. I aim to improve our understanding of cancer to better prevent, detect, and manage these conditions to reduce the public health burden of this disease.

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

I am a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at MIT CSAIL, advised by Prof. David Karger and a member of the Haystack Group and UID Group at MIT. I work on designing and building systems to improve discourse, collaboration, and understanding on the web, with applications to social media, news, political discourse, education, and civic engagement. I also conduct research on computational analysis of large-scale social data to understand topics in the social sciences. My general interests are social computing, HCI, and computational social science. Prior to MIT, I worked as a software engineer, completed a Masters in CS as a Gates Scholar at Cambridge, and a Bachelor in CS from Rutgers.

I was born in Inner Mongolia and raised in the beautiful coastal city of Zhuhai in Southern China. During my high school and undergraduate education abroad, I encountered diverse forms of living and ways of knowing the world, which inspired my passion for anthropology. Upon graduating from Duke University with a degree in International Comparative Studies, I took an internship at the International Organisation for Migration in Geneva, Switzerland. This exposure to global governance taught me the significance of employing diversified value systems and metrics for progress. Through these experiences, I have become convinced of anthropology's important role in informing situated policy by sharing localised knowledge and worldviews. My PhD project will examine how citizens of diverse backgrounds engage with revived Daoist spiritual and bodily self-cultivation practices to respond to China’s shifting socio-political landscape. Insights into the motivations and objectives of the lay Daoist adherents’ nonmaterial pursuits can inform social policy making in China and potentially in other societies undergoing rapid transformations. I am honoured to be joining the Gates Cambridge community, and look forward to mutually strengthening and sharing aspirations.

Previous Education

Duke University
University of Cambridge

I was born and raised in a small city - Linfen in Central China and received my Bachelor's in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from University College London. I went on to Imperial College London for my Master's in Machine Learning. From the four-year university life in the UK, I realised that I want to become a researcher and work in academia in the future. I enjoy being a researcher and publishing papers that could contribute to state-of-the-art technologies. I am very excited about starting my PhD study at Cambridge and discovering a whole new world. During my time at the University of Cambridge, I'll be working on the early detection of epidemic outbreaks under Professor Nigel Collier's supervision. I'm inspired by social media data's potential and interested in building applications that could improve our lives. The early detection of such pandemic situation could help the government in future planning, resource allocation, and diminishing the disease dissemination. I'm also interested in measuring risk perception in public. I hope to learn and contribute to Natural Language Processing techniques. I am extremely excited and honoured to be joining the Gates Cambridge community for my PhD.

Previous Education

Imperial College London (University of London) Computing (Machine Learning) 2019
University College London EEE 2018

There’s a special thrill when a difficult concept I have been trying to understand finally clicks. I chased this feeling as an undergraduate studying physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and fell in love with the mathematical rigor physics uses to explain fascinating phenomena. After starting a PhD in astronomy at Northwestern University, a research internship at the Center for Computational Astrophysics in the Flatiron Institute encouraged me to pivot towards machine learning research, leading me to leave the program with my Master's. During this internship, I worked on machine learning for astronomy and realized how impossible it is to understand the insights these models gain when treated as black boxes. This revelation sparked my passion for interpretability—breaking down what information successful machine learning models have actually learned. As a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, my research will focus on developing tools to peer inside these black boxes in physics and astronomy, with hopes to extend these methods to other fields. I am incredibly honored to join the Gates community and will work hard towards ensuring AI serves as an insightful partner in advancing scientific discovery.

Previous Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Physics
Northwestern University Astronomy

Born and raised in Zhengzhou, a city in the centre of China, I moved to Switzerland with my family at 15 years old. My interest in molecular biology arose during my undergraduate studies in biochemistry at ETH Zurich, leading to my subsequent MSc studies in structural biology. My Master thesis was focused on protein synthesis in eukaryotes and resulted in the successful determination of three novel structures, furthering our understanding of this critical biological process. For my PhD study in Dr. David Barford's lab at the MRC LMB, I will be working on the anaphase promoting complex (APC/C), a key player in regulating cell cycle transitions. Defects of the APC/C are frequently observed in different types of cancers, so I hope to ultimately understand the mechanistic details of the APC/C functions by engaging various structural and biochemical approaches. I am looking forward to tackling a challenging project at the LMB and meeting other outstanding scholars in the Gates community.

Previous Education

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich MSc in Structural Biology and Biophysics 2014
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology BSc in Biochemistry 2012

Nutrition during pregnancy is perhaps the most influential non-genetic factor for fetal development and lifelong health thereafter. Global rates of obesity are increasing at an alarming rate and with that, an increase in obesity during pregnancy. Children of obese mothers have an increased lifetime risk of developing cardiometabolic problems and psychiatric disorders. My PhD work will explore how maternal obesity affects immune activity to disrupt nutrient partitioning capabilities in the placenta. Through this, I hope to elucidate the mechanisms by which maternal obesity impacts fetal growth and offspring metabolism in order to develop targeted interventions for affected children. Developmental programing, reproductive health, and diet during pregnancy as a modifiable risk factor are internationally relevant science communications and public health issues. Knowledge must move from the laboratory into policy in order to reach health services. What’s more, relevant audiences have to understand and correctly apply this information. For these reasons, I am an active proponent to improving scientific literacy and access to education and dedicate my community development initiatives to creating such educational resources.

Previous Education

University of Toronto Reproductive Physiology 2020
University of Western Ontario Medical Sciences 2018

Previous Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology B.Sc. Mathematics 2010

Links

http://yufeizhao.com

Growing up in Austin, Melbourne, Beijing and Maryland, my life has been filled with shifting residences, but remaining unchanged is a deep curiosity for the miraculous gift of “mind” that distinguishes humans of all cultures. During my undergraduate studies in Neuroscience and Behavior at University of Notre Dame, I’ve found my passion for research in the neuroscience of consciousness and human intelligence. My PhD project at the MRC Brain and Cognition Unit investigates the neural networks associated with insight problem-solving, and I hope I can help reveal how our “intuition” works and inspire conversation across interdisciplinary fields. In an age marked by technology breakthroughs, my goal is to encourage more dialogue between neuroscience and artificial intelligence. I’m extremely honored to be part of the Gates Cambridge Scholars community, and I’m looking forward to beginning the next part of my journey with my fellow Gates Scholars and creating lasting impact on the world together.

Previous Education

University of Notre Dame Neuroscience and Behavior 2019

I grew up in Beijing, China and am currently completing my BS degree at the University of California San Diego in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. I have been fascinated by the link between genetic sequence and function ever since I first learned about the genetic code in high school. During my undergraduate studies, I investigated novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. This experience sparked my interest in immunology and also made me more aware of individual differences in genetic background as exemplified by the variability in drug response. At Cambridge, my PhD will focus on exploring the genetic specificity of the insect innate immune system at the molecular level. Invertebrate immunity is an important area of investigation, as insects are vectors for disease transmission, and they are well-characterized models for studying immunology and evolutionary biology. I hope to better understand the mechanisms linking genetic differences and susceptibility to infections, to contribute to a future of more targeted precision medicine. I am very excited to further my passion for Genetics with the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, and I am truly honored to join this vibrant community.

Previous Education

University of California,San Diego Art History/Theory/Criticism 2020

Furthering study in my chosen field up to the most advanced level is the best option and a worthwhile move in my path towards a career in engineering research. I hope that through my studies at Cambridge I can step by step reach the summit of my professional career.

Nemira Žilinskaitė is a biomedical scientist and entrepreneur dedicated to advancing neuroscience and women's health. As Gates Cambridge Scholar, she earned her PhD at the University of Cambridge, studying neural stem cells at the Gurdon Institute. She is now continuing research on early interventions in neurodevelopmental disorders at Vilnius University. Nemira founded Muuza, an AI-driven startup revolutionizing vaginal health diagnostics, and launched Nucleate Baltics to support biotech innovation across the region. Her work bridges science and entrepreneurship, driven by a commitment to translating cutting-edge research into accessible, real-world solutions that improve human health.

Previous Education

The University of Nottingham BSc Hons Biotechnology 2020