Directory

It is my hope—also conviction—that historical research can provide insights into how we make sense of our world today. To study History is also to appreciate the weight of truth. Most importantly, I hope my research can be part of a collective effort which helps people from my home, Hong Kong, weather stormy times and imagine their manifold futures. My undergraduate dissertation at HKU explores the city’s turbulent 1950s, not least the way upheavals at the time were written and remembered. As I began my MPhil at Cambridge, I decided to build upon such research to explore similar convulsions in Hong Kong and Singapore in the 1950s. My dissertation fleshes out their connected histories and examines the way Hong Kong and Singapore figured side by side from and beyond the British perspective. I am interested in how the movement of people, objects, and ideas drew the two colonies together. My PhD research will adopt a larger time frame to probe how people in both colonies came to terms with moments of radical change. It also hopes to further explore how ideological currents—from nationalism to the language of human rights, multiculturalism to the cause of democracy—cut across boundaries and pervaded Hong Kong, Singapore, and beyond.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge MPhil in World History 2021
University of Hong Kong History & English Studies 2020

Most have a favourite colour, I have a favourite cell. Macrophages are tissue-resident immune cells that are the ‘first ones in and last ones out’ in most tissue insults. This crush started in 2018, while investigating a rare immune disorder where chronic EBV infection drove uncontrolled macrophage activation, corrupting our biggest ally into a fatal enemy. I went on to study these cells in other contexts, including pregnancy, where placental macrophages have a plethora of roles essential for fetal health. By the midpoint of my medical studies at Cambridge University, I was committed to dedicating more time to immunology research, which has the potential to transform all fields of medicine. For my PhD, I bring my interests in tissue-resident immunity to triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). TNBC is the most aggressive form of breast cancer and the lack of effective therapies in TNBC is a major unmet clinical need. By combining computational methods with functional disease models, I hope to derive translatable insights to antibody and macrophage-directed responses within tumours, which may yield novel therapeutic strategies in TNBC. Outside of the lab, I am passionate about sports, education outreach and medical education.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Medicine 2020

Having studied History as an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, I strongly believe that knowledge of the past is key to building a better tomorrow. History bridges the gaps of time, space and culture to expose the complexities and contradictions of human nature, teaching us valuable and relevant lessons about ourselves and our world. It is my belief that an MPhil in World History at Cambridge will not only deepen my exposure to global historical diversity, but will also allow me to become an agent in championing and spreading such diversity. A Singaporean by birth, I hope in my postgraduate dissertation to explore the myriad social, political and cultural representations of Peranakan women, a unique ethnic group at the crossroads of Chinese and Malay cultures that has often been ignored and downplayed in the existing historiography. It is my hope that my research will not only empower women as social and historical agents, but also preserve and shed new light on modern Singapore's rapidly vanishing heritage. Indeed it is because of my desire to make a difference that I am honoured to be joining the Gates Cambridge family, an international community that constantly strives to better the world we live in.

Previous Education

Oxford University

A lovely place to learn about mice and men and the dissection of both.

I started questioning normative ideas of gender and sexuality in Southeast Asia during a casual excavation of my family archive. This fascination was compounded when I learned that my family history was anything but an anomaly during Imagined Malaysia’s project, “#TanpaPerkauman: The Road to Discrimination-Free Malaysia”, through which I interrogated much of the nationalistic, reductionist narratives I had internalised. While official histories have downplayed the region’s inherent hybridity and fluidity through rigid racial and gendered demarcations, my research assistantship with Sudarshana Chanda uncovered how interethnic families disrupted such categorisations in their lived experience. Inspired by these discoveries, my MPhil project at Cambridge aims to study how colonial subjects participated in the making and remaking of sexual and gender norms in contemporary Malaysia and Singapore through engaging with British Malaya’s incoherent legal regime that disciplined sexuality. I look forward to what are to be transformative interdisciplinary exchanges with fellow Gates Cambridge scholars as I begin my journey in writing inclusive social histories that shed light on the complexities of gendered experiences in Southeast Asia.

Previous Education

University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus Int. Relations with French 2022
Sunway College - 2019

Upon completing my degree in Psychology, I made my first foray into psychiatry by working as a research assistant to at Singapore's National Neuroscience Institute. While administering neuropsychological assessments for dementia patients, I became fascinated by the global challenge to halt the disease. I decided that fighting against neurodegenerative disorders would be my life endeavor. With a MRI research fellowship at University at Buffalo’s Neuroimaging Analysis Center, I am investigating the neural correlates of cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease. It is just so exciting to be part of a respected team at Cambridge, where I aim to improve early and accurate diagnosis of dementia subtypes. Through the utilization of mulitmodal neuroimaging techniques, I will be working with Professor John O'Brien to identify distinctive and signature patterns of cerebral abnormalities associated with specific dementia subtypes.

I am interested in the politics and poetics of “uncomfortable” art. What are the aesthetic and ethical relationships between “poverty” and “spectacle”, onscreen violence and offscreen audience? How might we think about participatory closeness versus spectatorial distance in cinema? Content like Parasite, Squid Game, Roma and 3% have all carried unflinching narratives of socioeconomic inequalities and violence — yet they are also “enjoyed” widely as popular entertainment. On another front, some of the most gruesome human circumstances have been narrated through the independent films travelling the international film festival circuit — yet the legitimacy and recognition of these films often reside in the well-to-do cultural intelligentsia of the business. I am troubled by these jarring collisions, and will pursue work in the intersection of cinema and ethics through the MPhil. My previous work in film criticism, journalism and programming also informs my approach to pay attention to the business contexts that these content operate within. Outside of film, I play football competitively and am passionate about the growth of women’s sports and the development of more robust mental wellness support in our communities.

Previous Education

University of Pennsylvania Cinema Studies and English 2020

I'm glad to have the opportunity to study at Cambridge. I'm going to be studying for an M.Phil in Finance at the Judge Institute. Over the next year, I hope to further improve my understanding of finance and the financial markets, meet a lot of interesting people and enjoy the entire Cambridge experience.

My research topic at Cambridge is on the aerodynamics involved in the flight of dragonflies. Specifically, I will be studying the fluid structural formations and interactions which lead to the high lift performance of dragonfly wings. This, however, would have been impossible without the necessary support, so many thanks to the Trust!

I started dabbling in science and research from 11, and won an award that year for my invention to aid the daily lives of people with rheumatoid arthritis. At 18 I won the Merit prize in the Singapore National Science Talent Search based on a biochemistry project investigating a particular enzyme in the venom of the poisonous Malaysian krait (Bungarus candidus). For my PhD I intend to work on stem cells and development, which complements with my clinical goal of becoming an obstetrician and gynaecologist – I wish to look at the developmental basis of subfertility and help couples everywhere bring their own little bundles of joy into the world.

Born and raised in the suburbs of Toronto, I am currently a senior studying Engineering Science at the University of Toronto who is passionate about sustainable energy and climate change. Over the past year, I have been studying how hydrocarbons flow in nanochannels to assess the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing. In addition, I have spent my undergraduate summers performing research in various labs around the world including nanoengineering at the National University of Singapore, solar cell design at the University of Toronto, and theoretical geophysics at the University of Cambridge. With growing concerns of global climate change, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is going to play a key role in our efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. Bearing this in mind, I plan to pursue a PhD in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics focusing on the fluid dynamics of carbon dioxide sequestration in deep saline aquifers. Specifically, I will be looking at the effects of spatial heterogeneities on the long-term safety and storage of carbon dioxide underground. I am very excited to be entering the rich and diverse community of Gates scholars this coming fall. Interests: basketball, martial arts, arts and crafts, and foosball

Previous Education

University of Toronto

Having always been fascinated by the history of science and how scientific descriptions can be quite counter-intuitive, I decided to major in Physics. However, I soon realised that the issues I was interested in were being asked instead in the Humanities and Social Sciences instead. As a result, I shifted focus to the History and Philosophy of Science (HPS). As a Master's student at Cambridge HPS, I studied various colonial-era surveyors in Scotland and British India. Drawing on the history of colonialism, the sociology of science, and cartography, I studied the range of of methods deployed to secure credibility by agents far away from metropolitan centres. I currently work as Research Associate in Singapore, where I use the tools and approaches learnt at Cambridge to study the growth of genomics and state surveillance in South and South East Asia.

Previous Education

University of Delhi BA Economics 2001

After a childhood in Arizona's biodiverse Sonoran desert and later Düsseldorf, Germany, I studied Zoology at University College Cork in Ireland, including an exchange at National University of Singapore. For the past several years, I have been working across Latin America in community-based conservation. Experiencing the conflicts plaguing tropical forests provoked my desire to solve a critical problem: while demand for agricultural land threatens biodiversity, production is essential to livelihoods. With Dr. Edgar Turner, I will focus on conservation and income stability in smallholder oil palm plantations, evaluating management methods’ effects on biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and profit. The research aims to improve understanding of oil palm ecology, smallholder economic relations, and other core ecological and sociological principles. With educated management, I believe biodiversity conservation has potential to ameliorate poverty and foster improvement for a range of pressing concerns. I am truly honoured to be part of The Gates Cambridge Trust, which provides an unparalleled foundation and community for positive global change.

Previous Education

University College Cork Bachelors of Science in Zoology 2017

I was born in Singapore in 1988 and was raised in Sydney, Australia. From 2007–2010, I undertook a BSc. (Adv) Hons. at the University of Sydney, Australia, for which I was awarded first class honours and the University Medal in Physical/Organic Chemistry. In 2012 I obtained an MSc. in polymer chemistry from Sydney University under the supervision of Professors Sebastien Perrier and Maxwell J. Crossley. From 2013 to 2016, I was awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to undertake PhD studies under Professor Jonathan Nitschke at the University of Cambridge. My PhD thesis explored the covalent post-assembly modification of metallosupramolecular architectures.

From February 2017-2019, I undertook a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Stevens Group at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden. My work focused on the preparation of stimuli-responsive synthetic biomaterials for accelerating the healing of chronic skin wounds.

From June 2019, I will join the faculty at the University of Sydney's school of chemistry as a Discovery Early Career Research Award Fellow, funded by the Australian Research Council. My work will focus on stimuli-responsive self-assembled polymers.

Previous Education

University of Sydney MSc., Polymer Chemistry 2012
University of Sydney BSc. Adv (Hons 1M), Physical–Organic Chemistry 2010

Across the world, alternative political communities fight to represent the masses, ranging from that of alternative political parties, NGOs, to protesters that gather in the city. Through studying, conducting research, and teaching at the National University of Singapore, I have explored this at various urban scales, with the goal of illuminating political inequalities embedded in the city. I further pursued this goal as an MPhil student at the University of Cambridge, which deepened my understanding of these issues beyond Singaporean shores. Concurrently, I have also been involved in events designed to bring related theories into the everyday context. My proposed PhD study aims to explore the urban spatialities of diasporic communities in the UK, examining the social spaces required for political expression and relevant other issues such as social integration. I hope for my research to be a platform documenting the complexity of their stories, in so broadening traditional conceptions of migratory urbanisms. I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to continue my education at Cambridge as a Gates Scholar, and will continue developing my capacity as a leader and researcher who can meaningfully impact the community around me.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Architecture and Urban Studies 2022
National University of Singapore Architecture 2021

My academic research and career has been driven by my passion for using evidence to improve the lives of others – particularly children and people who are disadvantaged and vulnerable. My PhD research examined what actually happens when juveniles are interviewed by police officers; in particular, I examined the interrogation techniques used by police officers, and the effectiveness of these techniques at eliciting different responses from the young suspects.
Since completing my doctorate in 2014 I have used my research skills to design, lead and conduct evaluations, including of UK and European public policy initiatives at RAND Europe in Cambridge, UK, and more recently of international development projects at the Centre for Evaluation and Development in Mannheim, Germany.

I’m a PhD student at Cambridge University specialising in techno-utopias within the Anthropocene. I investigate whether the emergence of techno-futuristic projects to colonise outer space, erect cryptodemocracies, and build seasteads on the ocean, leave a dent on international law and destabilise its philosophical foundations, or innovate it to be emancipatory. I am keen to know how 'futuristic' scales -- the oceanic, the virtual, the planetary -- stretch the sociolegal limits of the earth, and complicate the subjecthood of the mortal humans within it. Prior to my PhD, I have had the privilege of generating value across a range of policy spheres within Southeast Asia for 6 years. As technical aide to the Finance Minister, I led economic diplomacy missions to Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Vietnam, Singapore, New York, and Washington DC, as staff-level Head of Delegation (HoD). In the same stint, I held the international finance portfolio (IMF-WB, ADB, AIIB) and established strong linkages between the Philippines and multilateral institutions like the IMF-World Bank, ADB, and AIIB. I also authored white papers on development policy, specifically on tax, climate finance, and macroeconomic strategy. More recently, I spearheaded an all-Millennial, multidisciplinary task force to revamp the Philippines' Climate Change governance strategy. My team and I co-produce a climate future that is inclusive, just, and fit for the next generations. This work earned me a nomination to be the youngest Technical Expert on the National Panel of Technical Experts for climate change in the country, a nomination I declined due to conflicts of interest and scheduling.I'm open to collaborations in any of these fields, as well as to mentoring younger Filipinos who wish to access Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Anthropocene Studies 2021
London School of Economics & Political Science International Political Economy 2019

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-dl-tan-1b8290191