Directory

As a student of the society, I hope to help in mobilizing intellectual and social resources for the creation of a better world.

I obtained an MPhil in Advanced Chemical Engineering at Cambridge in 2010 and I am currently studying for a PhD in Engineering. The rising global energy demand coupled with the need to reduce carbon emissions call for research, development and commercialisation of low-cost and efficient renewable energy resources. My research is focused on the study and modelling of light conditions in photobioreactors. This is relevant to the optimisation of growth conditions of algae for large scale production of biofuels. After my PhD I hope to work where I can apply my knowledge and skills to the development of clean energy technologies. I hope to work on cutting-edge projects and to gain a chartered engineer status. My long term plan is to be in a position where I can positively influence government policies on energy and the environment.

For many years, I have been fascinated by the physiology of the heart and have strived, through research, to better understand how this amazing organ works. As a member of the Giussani lab at Cambridge, I am studying how adverse conditions in fetal life may alter the development of the fetal heart and predispose it to disease in adulthood. A better understanding of this process will provide insight into the prevention of heart disease. I am fascinated by both this research and its potential applications. Heart disease is rapidly becoming a threat to health worldwide and in the future, I hope to contribute to the development of better, more efficient therapeutics for this devastating disease. Outside the lab, I am looking forward to playing music in Clare College, learning to row and meeting new people.

Links

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20068362

I recently graduated from the University of California, Davis with a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. With the generous help of the Gates Cambridge Trust, I am entering my third year in the four year PhD program in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease at the Institute of Metabolic Science. My PhD project will focus on the molecular basis of the incretin effect. Specifically, I will be using various imaging techniques to analyze the nutrient sensing capabilities of intestinal enteroendocrine cells, as well as the vesicle dynamics of incretin hormones. Hopefully, by understanding the intricacies of stimulus-secretion coupling mechanisms in intestinal enteroendocrine cells we will be closer to harnessing the incretin effect in therapies aimed at improving the glucose tolerance of patients with type 2 diabetes.

The idea of harnessing the immune system to treat cancer is fascinating to me. Moreover, during my medical training in Nigeria, I was deeply moved by the experiences of cancer patients, especially with the very limited treatment options available. This combination of curiosity and compassion inspired me to pursue a career at the intersection of excellent patient care and cutting-edge cancer research. I subsequently received the Clarendon scholarship for a Masters at the University of Oxford, where my research was on the innate immune cGAS-STING signalling in cancer, under the supervision of Dr Eileen Parkes. At Cambridge, I have joined Dr Maike de la Roche's group to explore how hedgehog signalling is orchestrated in cytotoxic immune cells during the antitumor response. Mechanistic insights from this work, and others, will potentially enable better design of advanced cellular therapies, bringing hope to numerous patients. Ultimately, I plan to contribute significantly to efforts aimed at expanding access to transformative therapies globally, and alleviate the unacceptable disparities currently observed. I feel incredibly honoured to have joined the Gates Cambridge community and look forward to an enriching experience with other young leaders from across the world.

Previous Education

University of Oxford Integrated Immunology 2021
University of Ibadan Medicine and Surgery 2019

The pulse of being in one of the most prestigious seats of learning leaves you in awe. The academic culture is exemplary and I consider it a privilege to be here. I expect my time here to prove to be one of the most remarkable and rewarding experiences.

Most clinical technologies for detecting protein biomarkers are antibody based. As an alternative approach, my research focuses on the development of protein-catalyzed capture agents (PCCs) – compounds that possess the affinities and specificities of antibodies, but also are highly stable on the shelf and in vivo. PCCs are selected for specific binding through synthetic combinatorial peptide library methodologies that make use of the target protein as the catalyst for assembling a multivalent ligand. We are exploiting the small size, low cost, and rapid synthesis of PCCs to monitor biomarkers to detect cancer and other serious diseases.

I grew up in Michigan, but my family’s roots are in East Tennessee and Northern Bihar. Although Appalachia and Mithila are a world apart, witnessing climate disasters in both regions has shown me that poor and rural communities across the globe are not only least responsible for climate change, but also most vulnerable to its impacts. My MPhil in Anthropocene Studies at Cambridge will trace the emergence of theories about spatially and socially differentiated climate risks. Drawing on my undergraduate training in History and Energy Studies at Yale University, I will contribute to a growing body of scholarship that documents the history of climate change projections. In particular, I will analyze how those projections were received by a wide range of actors, including governments, fossil fuel companies, and the global public. My research will inform the emerging field of transnational climate litigation and sharpen debates about the distribution of responsibility for today’s climate crisis. I am excited to learn alongside fellow Gates-Cambridge scholars who share my passion for tackling global problems and improving the lives of the people most affected.

Previous Education

Yale University History

Growing up in Goiânia, Brazil, I witnessed how structural and social determinants often triggered and perpetuated psychological distress. As an undergraduate at Harvard, I directed my passion for psychology toward understanding how mental illness stigma impacts help-seeking and service use among the largest cohort of Brazilian youth at high risk for mental illness. My honors thesis findings revealed that youth who endorsed more stigma were significantly less likely to seek and receive treatment. At Cambridge, I aim to build on this work with Dr. Sharon Neufeld to answer key questions: Do mental health services improve outcomes among youth? Which services are most effective, for whom, and under what conditions? In collaboration with people with lived experience, clinicians, and policymakers, I hope to inform service provision in low- and middle-income countries. As the first from my state to study at Harvard College, and now the first Gates Cambridge Scholar, I feel a strong responsibility to use my opportunities to improve the well-being of those often left out of research and policy. I’m deeply grateful to join a community of diverse changemakers who will keep inspiring me to pursue this mission.

Previous Education

University of Oxford Psychology
Harvard University Psychology

Nick Ahamed is a Deputy Executive Director at Priorities USA, covering political partnerships, analytics and opinion research. In that role, he leads Priorities’ political operation by supporting and working with progressive allies. He also oversees the organization’s analytics and opinion research strategy, ensuring our messages are developed, tested, and delivered rigorously. Previously, he served as the Director of Analytics at Priorities, guiding targeting, ad testing, election forecasting and resource allocation for the largest outside effort to defeat Donald Trump. In 2017, he won the Gates Scholarship to research bias in voter turnout models at the University of Cambridge, from where he holds a MPhil in Politics and International Relations.

Previous Education

Stanford University

My experience growing up at the intersection of Swahili and Canadian communities has intrinsically shaped my interests in human rights, disarmament, and diaspora studies. From 2020-2022, I was a research assistant with the Stanford Graduate School of Education supporting the creation of the World Education Reform Database. In addition, during my time at the Reach Alliance, I conducted research examining the importance of employing local grassroots solutions to misinformation in conflict settings. Building on the combination of my degree from the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto and my professional experiences with organizations such as Grand Challenges Canada and the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, I intend to solidify my academic interest in African women's peacebuilding. In the MPhil in African Studies course, I will utilize comparative policy analyses to examine how disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) initiatives in Africa have integrated female ex-combatants into their framework. I firmly believe there is a social imperative to DDR work, and a failure to address inadequacies in those structures means a stronger chance of conflict reoccurring.

Previous Education

Middlebury Language Schools Arabic 2023
University of Toronto Social Sciences 2022

I came to Cambridge in 2009 to study for the MPhil and then PhD in epidemiology. I hold an MD degree in medicine from Tehran University and prior to attending Cambridge University worked on a GFATM funded Malaria control project at the United Nations Development Programme office in Iran. Upon completion of my studies at Cambridge, I joined UCL and worked on a public health modelling project to forecast the burden of cardiovascular disease, dementia and disability over the next 25 years in the UK and four European countries, to measure the impact of public health policies and interventions on these outcomes. I then joined Imperial College London as Assistant Professor in Epidemiology of Ageing to continue my research on dementia.

Links

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/s.ahmadi-abhari
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-ahmadi-abhari-a3043334

I was first exposed to the quantum world during my time in Sydney, Australia, where I completed my BSc in physics and statistics. Combining the fields of quantum error correction with theoretical condensed matter physics, my undergraduate thesis investigated problems such as how to safely store quantum information for longer periods of time. Questions such as these will not only be crucial for the future success of commercial quantum computing, but also help us better understand the quantum world itself. As a research community, we are on the brink of realising controllable, scalable quantum systems for the first time - giving us the unprecedented ability to test and improve upon ideas across quantum theory. I am excited to continue exploring these areas through a PhD in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, drawing upon ideas from both quantum information and condensed matter physics. As a Gates Cambridge Scholar, I am honoured to join such a diverse and collaborative academic community, through which I aim to continue embracing this interdisciplinary approach to my studies and future research.

Previous Education

University of Sydney Physics and Statistics 2022

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-aitchison

I am a linguist and language enthusiast who undertook my PhD at Cambridge on word-order variation in the endangered, indigenous Uralic language Lule Sámi, spoken in parts of Northern Norway and Sweden. I am currently Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer of Lule Sámi at Nord University in Bodo, Norway.