Directory

I was drawn into the curious and complex world of immunology during my Honours degree in the Horsnell group at the University of Cape Town, where I studied lung pathology in the acute immune response to helminth infections. This, against my background as a clinician and further education in public health, has led my professional interests towards the intersection of these three areas: fundamental science, clinical medicine and population health. By identifying important health concerns and addressing them across scales, I hope to improve global health outcomes through my career in a cost-effective and context-relevant manner which prioritises reaching under-served people. In partnership with global leaders in the field, my PhD aims to develop and test a novel vaccine platform to generate broadly-protective vaccines against Betacoronaviruses. The idea underlying this work is ‘pandemic preparedness’ – aiming to ensure the next human viral pandemic is comparatively minor by pre-emptively improving the breadth and efficacy of available vaccines. I am privileged to be joining the Gates Cambridge community, and am very grateful to the Trust for this wonderful opportunity.

Previous Education

University of Cape Town Public Health (Epi & Biostats) 2022
University of Cape Town Medicine 2017
University of Cape Town Infectious Disease, Immunology 2014

I developed an interest in informality during my postgraduate studies in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. In contemporary development discourses, informality is invariably connected to free riding, low tax-to-GDP ratio, little or no accountability, and the underprovision of public goods. This discourse is even more pervasive in much of the Global South where the growth of formal cities is juxtaposed with skyrocketing informal settlements and economies. During my PhD in Development Studies, I will ethnographically assess the veracity of the hegemonic discourses on informality focusing on the specific case of Nigeria―Africa’s largest economy but also, paradoxically, the state with one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in Africa and in the world at only 6 percent. As a man of ideas, I strongly believe that education and research are conducive to social, moral, and political revolutions. I am confident that my research will inform policy interventions given the functional holes in Nigeria’s labile taxation system. I am profoundly honoured to be joining the Gates Cambridge scholarly community.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Social Anthropology 2020
Central European University (Budapest College) Political Science 2019

At Cambridge University, where I am currently enrolled in an MPhil program and surrounded by hundreds of outstanding young academics, I find myself inspired by the youth voice. It is a great honor for me to be an awardee of the Gates Scholarship again for my PhD program in social anthropology at Cambridge. The experiences I have had both locally and internationally with youth culture have led me to recognize that youth politicisation and social movements are vital elements of our society. Socioeconomic hardships, unequal access to social and economic capital are the issues that underpin social movements in Mongolia. A study of Ulaanbaatar city focusing on its movements will assist us in understanding the complexities of social problems and political activism among citizens. In the broad scope, it covers many issues, including those related to social movements, the realisation of national identity, the impact of digital technologies, the relationship between citizens and the state, and the evolving political landscape.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Social Anthropology 2023
Free University of Berlin Socialogy and Anthropology 2022
National University of Mongolia Sociology and Anthropology 2014

My interest in Antarctica was first triggered when, growing up in the Netherlands, I noticed its absence from the world maps we used in school. I became intrigued by this mysterious blind spot; this blank and ‘silent’ space. At age 18, I made a life-changing trip to Antarctica. Ever since, I’ve been committed to expanding public knowledge about Antarctica. For my undergraduate studies, I completed 3 BA degrees at once, in Philosophy, Literary Studies, and International Relations. This multidisciplinary background helped me understand the extent to which storytelling shapes our worldview. And the stories we tell about Antarctica tend to be dominated by the archetype of the heroic white male explorer. My PhD will investigate how we can shift public perception of Antarctica, by amplifying the underrepresented narratives and muted voices that also form part of Antarctica’s diverse (hi)story. During my MPhil in Education at the University of Cambridge, I began to use podcasting to create participatory platforms for public reflection about future-making. For my PhD, I will use podcasting and soundscaping as sonic methods to capture Antarctica’s polyvocality, in order to start foretelling more inclusive and sustainable Antarctic futures.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Education 2021
University of Amsterdam Literary and Cultural Studies & Philosophy 2019
University of London International Relations 2019

As a human rights lawyer focused on SOGIESC (sexual orientation, gender identity, expression and sex characteristics), race and gender, I am invariably interested in the ways in which law, society and these identity categories intersect. My time working on LGBTQIA+ legal and social advocacy in Kenya, where same sex relations still carry a 14-year penalty, and my academic exploration of sexual violence against queer women in South Africa during my LLM at Leiden University, brought to the fore the urgent need for multi-faceted strategies in tackling complex socio-legal challenges. Accordingly, my doctoral research applies a transdisciplinary approach to examine how, why, and with what impact Black lesbian bisexual and queer womxn mobilize law to protect their rights and advance social change in Kenya and South Africa. By studying how we translate ideas of political and personal identity, human rights, social advocacy and legal mobilization into specific strategies, I hope to expatiate intersectionality as lens, epistemology, method, and action. In particular, how individuals at the nexus of intersecting vulnerabilities navigate systems of oppression at the practical level and articulate their demands both before the law and society.

Previous Education

Black Europe Summer School Citizenship, Race & Ethnicity 2021
Rijksuniversiteit Leiden (Leiden Univ) Human Rights Law 2020

As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, I studied Earth sciences to better understand the fundamental processes underpinning the natural environment and how modern society has pushed those processes to the brink of collapse. I learned that one of the greatest sources of unsustainable natural resource consumption is modern agriculture. This was an auspicious realization, as the study of agriculture overlaps with many interesting disciplines from nutrition to environmental sustainability to biotechnology. I therefore decided to study agricultural sciences as a masters student at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I researched how light quality influences plant growth and resilience to stress. As a natural progression, I then moved into commercial greenhouse hydroponics where I worked to optimize environmental conditions most suitable for crop growth. I then returned to more academic pursuits at the Carnegie Institution for Science, where I continued to investigate how plants respond to environmental stress. At Cambridge, I will explore how plants anticipate and adapt to environmental fluctuations. Insights gained from this research will support continued efforts to breed more efficient, productive, and sustainable crops.

Previous Education

Hebrew University of Jerusalem Agricultural Sciences 2018
Northwestern University Earth & Planetary Sciences 2013

Anthropology has consistently helped me bring to light aspects of law otherwise hidden, realizing that where disciplines meet, legal research can better understand and broach social change. It is this passion for interdisciplinary research that has guided my academic journey from studying law, sociology, and anthropology at Tel Aviv University to completing my graduate studies at Yale Law School. Being Palestinian in Israel, even questions of identity are never simple to answer. Normally, I am expected to describe, and associate, myself as, “Arab-Israeli” rather than “Palestinian.” If I choose to disregard this label, I invite scrutiny almost immediately. How I see myself, and as importantly, how Israeli society sees me, are deeply interconnected and rife with tensions and contradictions. This solidified my desire to be a scholar—steeped in anthropology and law—able to expose the deficiencies and marginalization endemic to Israeli society. My Ph.D. seeks to ethnographically elucidate the relationship between the Israeli state, its legal institutions, and the Palestinian community at its margins. Through my research I aim to highlight the voices I feel are neglected in my educational and professional environments. Aspiring to give voice to the lived experience of marginalized groups, being part of the Gates community will advance my analytical skills and deepen my theoretical understandings in ways I can’t yet imagine.

Previous Education

Yale University Law 2022
Tel Aviv University Anthropology and Sociology 2020
Tel Aviv University Law 2017

During my first semester as a student at the University of Pennsylvania, I developed an insatiable curiosity for astrophysics in my introductory physics class. Soon after, I became involved in research on dark matter and the transient universe, including black holes, microlensing, and supernovae. My curiosity, combined with research experience, grew into a B.A. and M.Sc. in physics from the University of Pennsylvania and a desire to pursue a PhD in astronomy. Additionally, it spurred in me a passion for encouraging more young women to pursue a STEM education, which I have enjoyed doing as a mentor and tutor. At the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, I will study supernovae in the near infrared as a probe of the accelerated expansion of the universe. In addition, I will continue my efforts to increase the involvement of women and underrepresented groups in physics through mentorship and advocacy. I look forward to being part of the Gates-Cambridge community to learn from and engage with scholars who are actively working to improve the lives of others in every field.

Previous Education

University of Pennsylvania Physics 2022

I was first introduced to the enormous potential of statistical modelling and machine learning during my undergraduate degree at the LSE and master’s degree at Imperial College. Later on, I worked as a Data Scientist on industry applications in pharma and healthcare, where I noticed a large gap between what machine learning algorithms can do in theory and the degree to which they are adopted in industry. While deep learning models have the potential to help millions of patients during the screening and treatment of fatal diseases, their lack of transparency diminishes the trust of healthcare practitioners, patients, and regulators. I have explored this problem throughout my Computer Science MPhil at Cambridge by studying how we can use design intuitive clinical decision-making tools for different cancer screening tasks. During my PhD, I seek to further develop explainable and stable machine learning systems with a high human-in-the-loop component. I am very excited by the contributions that these systems could bring to the field of healthcare and beyond – improving the accessibility of ML algorithms for fatal diseases and addressing concerns about hidden biases and accountability in algorithmic decision making.

After graduating with degrees in History and Classical Humanities from Miami University, I spent the next few years far removed from academia. It was my experience outside the classroom, which instilled in me the significance of academic inquiry, and the potential impact of historical scholarship more specifically. While volunteering in a refugee camp, I was a constant witness to the creation of historical documents. I wanted to know who decided what records of any given event survived. I was curious to know how anyone might archive the records of displaced peoples and who had access to those records. Upon my return, I decided to pursue dual-master’s degrees in both History and Archive Management at Simmons University, to better understand how the information sciences inform the humanities. As I pursue a PhD in History, my focus remains on transnational events and displaced peoples not only as subjects of inquiry but as individuals with a unique admittance into the archival record who provide a significant perspective on collecting practice. It is my belief that the questions we ask of the past inform the questions we ask of ourselves. I am honored and grateful for the opportunity to join the Gates Cambridge community!

Previous Education

Simmons University History 2022
Miami University History, Classical Humanities 2015

I am a clinical psychologist and mental health researcher, aiming to outline evidence-based practical conclusions for clinicians. I am interested in the etiology of common psychopathologies (PTSD, depression, and anxiety disorders), striving to enhance the understanding of underlying transdiagnostic mechanisms and to promote effective interventions that are tailored for the specific patient. I hold a BSc in psychology, biology, and neuroscience, and MA in clinical psychology, all from Tel-Aviv University. In recent years, I combined research and clinical practice in Israel’s public health services, in attempt to attain a holistic perspective on psychopathology. At Cambridge’s MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, I will investigate the cognitive processes that occur during formulation-based interventions for PTSD, emphasizing the dynamics of negative appraisals, which is considered a central mechanism in the clinical presentation of PTSD. To that end, I plan to bring a personalized approach to my research, assimilating the notion of ‘precision medicine’ into evidence-based psychotherapy. I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of the Gates Cambridge community and learn alongside inspiring peers and mentors

Previous Education

Tel Aviv University Clinical psychology 2022
Tel Aviv University Psychology with neuroscience 2019
Tel Aviv University Biology with neuroscience 2019

Having first encountered Latin and Greek in the only secondary school in Iceland which still teaches ancient languages, I read for a double bachelor degree in Latin and Greek at the University of Iceland and spent a year at the University of Glasgow as an exchange student. In my MPhil in Classics at Cambridge I wrote a thesis on language contact in Ovid᾽s exile poetry. With my PhD project, I will continue to work on Latin sociolinguistics. Part of my project seeks to address the linguistic prejudice faced by people who speak a non-standard variety of language. This sort of prejudice is not new since it is also well attested in antiquity. By creating a fuller picture of social variation in Latin, I aim to highlight the fact that variation in language has always existed. I will do so by focusing on the connection between the linguistic behaviour and the social status of various Roman authors, concentrating on Latin epistolography. I am deeply honoured and grateful to do this research with the support of the Gates Cambridge Trust.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Classics 2022
University of Iceland Latin 2021
University of Iceland Greek 2021

I am curious about the ways people understand and create discourses around environmental issues. As an undergraduate—first at Brandeis University, then, after transferring, at Harvard University—I studied environmental challenges and became immersed in the expansive discipline of Science and Technology Studies. Simultaneously, I developed a love of journalism, particularly radio storytelling. In the years following my undergraduate education, I cultivated both of these interests. I worked with Schmidt Futures to understand and support effective philanthropic approaches at the intersection of science, technology, and society. I also worked as a reporter at KOTO, the community radio station in Telluride, CO. Reporting for a small mountain region during a global pandemic gave me firsthand appreciation for the ways journalism can foster community. But I’m also uncertain how journalism can help humanity face larger environmental challenges. As climate change alters our world, I believe unifying and clarifying storytelling will be all the more essential. I hope to use this MPhil in Anthropocene Studies to examine the roles journalists can and should play in helping people understand and respond to climate change.

Previous Education

Harvard University Env. Science & Public Policy 2019
Brandeis University Environmental Studies 2017

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended Santa Clara University. During my undergraduate studies, I earned a B.S. in Political Science and Ethnic Studies with a minor in Religious Studies. Through my courses and work as a research assistant, I became interested in using academia and scholarship to fight against the erasure of Black women’s narratives. As a student of Multi-disciplinary Gender Studies at Cambridge, I plan to continue this work by reexamining the Enlightenment with an expanded historiographical perspective to include those who have seldomly been uplifted as representations of the era: enslaved women. Ultimately, my objective is to explore how women with absolutely no social or legal control over their own bodies, minds, and spirits confronted an era centered around freedom and the pursuit of happiness. My hope is that this kind of archival excavation will help us address current international and personal traumas with policy solutions contextualized by historical circumstances. I am incredibly honored to have the opportunity to join the Gates Cambridge community and conduct research in an environment that prioritizes equity and global social change.

Previous Education

Santa Clara University POLI SCI & ETHN STDS 2021

I was born and raised in the beautiful city of Nanjing, China. I was then fortunate to be able to study electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. There, in the second half of my bachelor's studies, I was introduced to the world of machine learning and became amazed by its potential in improving our society in a large variety of application areas. I worked on the computational modeling of driver visual attention which could help reduce car accidents caused by driver distraction. Afterward, I went on to pursue a master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at ETH Zürich, where my interest in natural language processing started to grow. I worked on several projects including one on protest event extraction from newspaper data. In my PhD, I plan to work on natural language processing and computational social science. I am interested in building and applying computational methods to text data to learn about society.

Previous Education

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Signal Processing and ML 2022
University of Texas Dallas Electrical Engineering 2020

I am from Detroit, Michigan and spent my teenage years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During my studies in Anthropology and English at Bowdoin College, I explored how humans express differences in their lived experiences to each other. I was a recipient of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, through which I studied how storytelling can facilitate communication across differences in the context of school district community engagement. My professional experiences after Bowdoin solidified and honed my commitment to serving people while introducing me to the intersections of law, community engagement, and the American immigration system. In my MPhil research, I studied the unique immigration legal services provided to undocumented Latinos in the Detroit (USA) and Windsor (Canada) transborder area by virtue of their proximity to each other. My PhD in Social Anthropology explores Latine community building, citizenship practices, and hopes & futures as analytics to better understand post-industrial, aspirational Detroit as an urban borderland. By rooting my research in studies of immigration law, social service provision, and formations of collective identity in urban space, I hope to elevate marginalised voices and promote the autonomy of this complex, vibrant community. I am honoured to be a part of the Gates Cambridge community, where we all strive to learn how to serve people better.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Social Anthropology 2022
Bowdoin College Anthropology, English 2018

I studied Philosophy and Theology at the University of Edinburgh before coming to Cambridge to take the MPhil in Theology, Religion, and Philosophy of Religion at Clare College. My PhD research investigates Karl Barth’s engagement with Ludwig Feuerbach’s atheist theory of religion. I am also currently studying Anselm of Canterbury's 'ontological argument'.

I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and completed my B.Sc. in Biochemistry at Covenant University, Nigeria. My research interest is in the mechanisms that control body weight and how they can be exploited to improve obesity outcomes. Metabolic diseases, like obesity and diabetes, are a significant health challenge affecting millions of people globally. During my undergraduate study, I developed a keen interest in the interplay of biological processes and lifestyle in the pathophysiology of metabolic diseases. Moreover, growing up in Africa where the rates are alarmingly rising with sub-minimal health research output and public policy efforts strengthened my resolve to address these challenges. At Cambridge, I will study the mechanisms by which gut hormones control body weight and blood sugar levels aiming to develop treatments that modulate gut hormone signaling. This fascinates me because these strategies present the most promising therapeutic avenue to combat the obesity epidemic. I hope to contribute to the development of biomedical infrastructure that can alleviate the burden of metabolic diseases in Africa. I am honoured to be part of the Gates Cambridge community and hope to leverage the platform to pursue my goals and impact lives.

Previous Education

Covenant University Biochemistry 2020