Directory

I am committed to integrating theoretical, empirical and advocacy work on punishment and incarceration in order to contribute to a more humane justice system. I will be researching adolescents’ perceptions of fairness and the legitimacy of power in youth prisons, focusing on how these perceptions impact adolescents' well-being while they are incarcerated. My goal is, as an academic, to examine the broader implications of social policy, but also to tell, through empirical research, the stories of those most affected by the social policy of crime and punishment.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge MPhil in Criminology 2007
Yale University 2001

At Cambridge, I pursued an MPhil studying the parasite responsible for the tropical disease known as human African trypanosomiasis. Since then, I have attended medical school at Johns Hopkins and am now a resident in ocular surgery at Harvard. I remain passionate about global health, with current research involving trachoma (a potentially blinding disease seen primarily in African and Asia) and cataract surgery in India.

Previous Education

Virginia Military Institute

Links

http://www.innoviatech.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidan-craigwood-b3324113

I was born and raised in Bucharest, Romania, where I also graduated from the University of Bucharest in 2004 after reading Latin and Romanian. I also completed a master’s in linguistics, after which I obtained a permanent position as a researcher at the Institute of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy. At the same time I got involved in journalism as a correspondent at the Romanian Parliament and Presidency. However, the turning point in my career was the year that I spent at Cambridge (2009 / 2010) as a visiting student, carrying out research on rhetoric and discourse analysis. Then I decided to return to my former passion about classics and to build up an academic career in this field. My PhD project at Cambridge is about Latin rhetoric: it consists in a commentary on the “Pro Flacco”, one of Cicero’s least known and appreciated speeches. The choice of the topic was motivated by the following factors: a) there is, surprisingly, no extensive and up-to-date academic discussion in classical scholarship on this important speech either in English or in any other language; b) the “Pro Flacco” is a key source for understanding Roman imperialism in general and the complicated relationship between Rome and Asia Minor in 1st c. B.C. in particular; c) this speech exposes all the xenophobic clichés which were present in the cultural space of Rome at the end of the Republic and the way they were exploited in politics and oratory.

Originally from Irvine, CA, I completed my BS in Psychobiology at UCLA, where I studied the neural mechanisms of emotion regulation. At Cambridge, I am exploring the neural mechanisms of human motivation and decision making under the supervision of Prof Trevor Robbins in the Department of Experimental Psychology. In particular, I’m investigating how the neuromodulator serotonin influences decision making in social contexts. Following my PhD, I plan to conduct postdoctoral research on the neural mechanisms of prosocial behaviour. Ultimately I hope to direct my own research centre and advise policy makers on human behavior.

Throughout my undergraduate education at Smith College, I gained a great appreciation for interdisciplinary dialogues to advance scientific knowledge. I leveraged my mathematical background to organize and connect topics in biology, biomathematics, chemistry, and physics, as well as psychology, sociology and archaeology. My interdisciplinary studies have broadened the perspective with which I approach problems in preparation for a career in the field of global medical research and the design of medical devices for the developing world. I have integrated my diverse academic interests with my medical aspirations through an MPhil at the Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials, where I am currently working to improve the three-dimensional architectural control of affordable ice-templated collagen scaffolds. My work allows these scaffolds to closely mimic the structure and texture of natural tissue and will be employed in regenerative medical applications such as cardiac muscle repair, dermal grafts, nerve regeneration, and joint restoration. As part of the Gates Cambridge community, I hope to broaden my multifaceted interests and share my knowledge as I pursue my PhD focused on the development of a cardiac patch that will facilitate the regeneration of damaged heart tissue. Additionally, I will refine the novel technique I developed during my MPhil to enable this technology to be used in regenerative medical applications throughout the body.

Previous Education

Smith College
University of Cambridge

In my LLM at Cambridge I plan to focus on intellectual property law and dispute resolution. I have spent the past two years living and working as a lawyer in China, and in the future I hope to combine my study of law with my interest in China and its development. I am looking forward to experiencing university life in Cambridge and making the most of a challenging academic environment.

As an undergraduate at the University of Washington, I majored in Bioengineering and Computer Engineering. I worked in three research labs building technology for individuals with lower limb amputations, mobile software for low resource settings, and DNA molecules for long-term data storage. I believe phones can be a valuable tool for change and I look forward to continuing research in mobile systems at Cambridge.

Previous Education

University of Washington

I come from Porto Alegre in Southern Brazil. My interest in languages stems from listening to my grandfather who taught himself Spanish and English. As a teacher of English in my community, I would scrutinise the language in search for patterns that could be explained and compared with my students’ native tongue, Portuguese. Due to the shortage of linguistic departments in my homeland and to the luck of finding a British benefactor, I undertook a degree in English Language and Linguistics at the University of York. The MPhil in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at Cambridge provided me with an opportunity to contribute to a better understanding of this intricate faculty that defines our species and permeates our social lives. My thesis investigated how psychophysiological states (i.e. emotions) get 'trapped' in the lexicon (our mental dictionary) during language acquisition. As a Gates Alumnus, my ambition is to help developing countries such as Brazil to cope with the pressure of an ever growing need for bilingualism. I'm currently working in conjunction with the public and privates sectors to build strategies that may reduce foreign language anxiety (i.e. an automatic fear response when the foreign language is activated).

Previous Education

University of York English Language and Linguistics 2013

I am currently involved in WindAfrica, an EPSRC Global Challenge Research Funded project aiming to develop performance-based guidelines for wind turbines in Africa. My role is the development and supervision of the field testing which will be conducted in South Africa to investigate the representative behaviour of piled foundations under cyclic lateral loading in expansive soils.

Originally from Belarus, I have spent the last four years studying Mechanical Engineering at The University of Warwick, UK. During my undergraduate studies I have become increasingly fascinated by the significance and complexity of Fluid Dynamics and conducted an extensive year-long experimental research, which has inspired me to pursue a PhD in this subject. In my doctoral studies I will be addressing the topic of double-diffusive convection. This fundamental phenomenon has a wide range of applications in various engineering and natural processes and holds particular importance in environmental studies, such as geology and oceanography. My objective is to use the latest developments in numerical modelling and experimental techniques to complement relevant existing findings with accurate comprehensive data, enhancing our understanding the phenomenon. In doing that, I am hoping to contribute towards the development of our understanding of the global environmental processes and assist in tackling the challenges associated with climate change. With an ambition of being at the forefront of academic research I am eager to collaborate with the world’s best minds at Cambridge University whilst building a professional global network of future leaders committed to improving the lives of others.

Previous Education

University of Warwick

Originating from Pretoria, South Africa, I entered a career in human rights law with the hope that I contribute to rebuilding my country following the rights violations that characterised apartheid. My education from the University of Pretoria and New York University led me to clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, work on litigation before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and provide assistance to members of constitutional drafting assemblies in the Middle East following the Arab Spring. It is however academia that is my main interest. My research to date has focused on the extent to which human rights impose obligations on non-state actors, and whether doing so can create a more equitable and just society. At Cambridge, I will further my understanding on this topic by focusing on one particular type of non-state actor, political parties. I am humbled at the opportunity to join a global network of leading minds committed to creating a better society.

As I was born in Nepal but raised between Nepal, Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh and Indonesia, I constantly grapple with the question: what defines identity and citizenship in regional, transnational and global contexts? Using my cross-cultural lens and my interdisciplinary experiences as a double major in International Studies and Strategic Communications and minor in Religious Studies, I plan to pursue an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies at Cambridge to explore identity and intersectionality in context of South Asia. My proposed study explores how social media helped or hindered nuanced discussion on nationalism and identity in response to the 2015 unofficial border blockade between Nepal and India. By highlighting the ways in which social media driven narratives can influence how nationalism is embodied, my research would attempt to unpack the process by which complex phenomenon can turn into ‘broad-brush’ approaches to strategically influence particular stakeholders involved in the conflicts. The global rise in digital politics raises the need to develop necessary literature to understand its role in influencing public perception and framing dominant narratives around social issues.

Previous Education

Elon University

I'm a social anthropologist by training, and currently work as senior researcher at the Western Norway Research Institute. My research interests include energy imaginaries, justice in climate transitions and impacts of energy infrastructure on local and indigenous communities. I thrive working on projects that are multimodal and experimental, especially in collaboration with the performing arts field. .

Previous Education

University College London BSc Anthropology 2008

Cooperation is important for the evolution of many species, allowing them to persist in otherwise hostile environmental conditions. As an undergraduate at Princeton, I cultivated an interest in the evolution of cooperative behavior through my research on three avian species. During my PhD in Zoology as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, I hope to uncover the impacts of cooperation on biodiversity using burying beetles as a model study system. Not only do burying beetles provide essential ecosystem services such as returning bioavailable nutrients to the soil, but they can also help us understand how social behavior might influence biodiversity on a genetic and phenotypic scale. By studying wild beetle populations in Cambridge, I also hope to learn about drivers of local adaptation in a fragmented habitat, which can inform us about factors that allow species to adapt to human-induced environmental change. I believe that the biodiversity crisis is one of the most important challenges facing humanity today; my work will contribute to meaningful solutions to preserve the well-being of humans and the ecosystems in which we live. I am honored to be joining a community of scholars committed to improving the lives of beings around the world.

Previous Education

Princeton University Ecology & Evolutionary Biology 2022

Before my masters in Cambridge, I studied Egyptology and Art History at Leiden University, The Netherlands. My main interests as an art historian include 18th-century British architecture, the influence of Egypt on design, and the relationship between art and identity creation. During my PhD, I will study the depiction of architecture, especially country houses, in so-called topographical drawings and prints in 18th-century Britain. These works revealed an almost hidden part of the country to the middle class. In doing so, they contributed to the construction of a national taste and identity in a time where Britain was strongly polarised because of industrialisation and urbanisation. My long-term goal is to make a difference in the protection of architectural heritage, and I strongly believe that saving heritage starts with getting people more enthusiastic about it. My PhD will contribute to making country houses more popular and accessible and help us to protect these places that are not only places of memory but also of connection, both with our past and with each other. Next to my studies, I am active as classical percussionist and soprano, and look forward to sharing my passion for art and music with the Gates community.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge History of Art & Architecture 2024
Rijksuniversiteit Leiden (Leiden Univ) Art, Architecture and Interior 2023
Rijksuniversiteit Leiden (Leiden Univ) History of Art 2022