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As a first generation born American, I have always been between two cultures. Music is a large part of my cultural identity and I have always been proud of being a Caribbean man, however, music in the mainstream will often make people like me feel less American which can create a shameful attitude towards our own culture. My passion for choral music is greater than simply singing in an ensemble because when we explore music from other cultures and sing their songs after learning about the song's history, we can get a glimpse into a culture that is not our own. When we have performances highlighting Traditional Folk music from various countries and Classical music on the same stage we begin to bridge the chasm of the hidden curriculum perpetuated by many of our music educators. Each voice in a chorus has an important role and each person's identity and experiences add to the importance of music making. I want to help acknowledge composers, musicians, and lyricists who might not have had their work circulated through the mainstream as often and use those voices to break down those walls of prejudice in music education. I am humbled to join the Gates Scholar community and I look forward to collaborating with my colleagues.

Previous Education

Teachers College, Columbia University M.A in Music and Music Education 2018
City University of New York B.F.A Music/Concentration Classical Voice (Summa Cum Laude) 2016
Seminole State College of Florida Associate of Arts 2010

After receiving my M.Phil in 18th Century and Romantic Studies at Clare College, I completed a doctorate in Romantic poetry at New College, Oxford. As of 2019, I’ve been teaching English at Lancing College in West Sussex, and my first novel, History Keeps Me Awake at Night, will be published with Granta (February, 2023). I contribute to the Times Literary Supplement, and my writing has also appeared in the Southern Review, The Stinging Fly, and granta.com.

Previous Education

University of Oxford 2013
Greenville College 2008

I was drawn into the world of immunology and infectious diseases 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

Having a diverse but mainly Arts background, at Cambridge I shifted to Sciences, pursuing a PhD in Biology at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. I have always been interested in how people use language in context (pragmatics), and what mechanisms in the brain underlie contextual enrichment. Therefore for my PhD I chose to explore the neural correlates of speech act processing, thus contributing to the emerging discipline of neuropragmatics.

Links

http://www.nataliabrumley.com

I hold a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Nigeria, where I was introduced to the concept of energy efficiency and its significance in improving energy access. Pursuing an MPhil in Energy Technologies offered an opportunity to understand, in-depth, the existing energy systems and evaluation tools in green economies and further explore transferable lessons in energy transition applicable to developing countries like mine. Recognising the impact of energy research in buildings, especially in my country, I am committed to contributing original research that advances our understanding of building energy performance. My proposed PhD research aims to integrate Human-Centric Design principles with energy management systems to minimise operational energy use in buildings. My overarching goal is to leverage my expertise to design efficient and affordable solutions that improve demand-side management in the built environment and address energy access challenges for at-need communities. I am very excited about engaging in the innovative research environment at the EECI lab as a Gates scholar. Through my research endeavours, I aspire to contribute positively to the energy landscape, both in Nigeria and beyond.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Energy Technologies 2024
Federal University of Technology Owerri Mechanical Engineering 2021

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

With the modernization of medicine, we as a global community need to reevaluate the ostracization of people with disabilities and rare genetic disorders. Growing up with a close friend with autism, I witnessed firsthand the bullying that many people with disabilities experience. This sparked my passion for both genome engineering research and disability advocacy. During my undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, my interests further grew as I helped develop CRISPR-Cas9-based gene therapy to treat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in vivo. However, there currently exists a large disconnect between the development of novel gene therapies in academic research labs and their feasibility in clinical applications. The treatment of genetic disorders is plagued by off-target effects and autoimmune responses, the long-term effects of which are often neglected. During my time in the translational biomedical research program at Cambridge, I hope to gain the necessary skills to help bridge the gap between genome engineering and the pathophysiology seen in the clinic. Additionally, I hope to continue to foster and advocate for a more inclusive environment for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Outside of my studies, I enjoy long distance running, teaching, and exploring the outdoors. I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the Gates Cambridge community and look forward to upholding its ideals and values.

Previous Education

University of California, Berkeley

The Gates Scholarship, a lifetime opportunity, a new path into life that was far from being realized without it. Pursuing my Mphil in Real Estate Finance was made possible thanks to the Gates Cambridge Trust. Having had this ultimate chance to study this course at Cambridge, I will do my best to achieve it with high level standards, and launch a career in the Real Estate development fied or go on for the PhD.

Growing up amidst the turmoil of Libya during the war, I used to observe how people reacted differently to the same environment; their mental health journeys diverging along unpredictable paths. I became mystified by the resilience and vulnerability of the human mind, and later earned a Psychology BA from the American University of Beirut as a MEPI-TL scholar.After pursuing a career in Psychosocial Support with the United Nations, I realised the roots of these issues delved far deeper than surface-level support could reach. I then earned an MSc in clinical Neuroscience from UCL as a Chevening scholar and worked as a research assistant at the University of Cambridge. My PhD utilises advanced In Vivo imaging and Optogenetic techniques to study specific neuronal circuit components in genetic mouse models of neurodevelopmental disorders and healthy mice during visually guided decision-making. My goal is to uncover what influences proficient and deficient sensory discrimination, fostering knowledge that destigmatises and guides tailored neuropsychiatric treatments, ultimately transforming patients' lives. Being a Gates scholar is both an honour and a responsibility, which I intend to uphold by bridging my research with activism.

Previous Education

University College London Clinical Neuroscience 2022
American University of Beirut Psychology 2020

I am currently completing a PhD dissertation entitled 'Emotional Rhetoric and Holy War in Middle English Romance'. From October 2016, I will be a Junior Research Fellow at St Catharine's College, Cambridge.

I am currently finishing my degree work in Health Economics and Public Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health before returning to my last two years of general surgery residency at Johns Hopkins.

One saying sums up my conviction as a person and architect: "Many small people who in many small places, do many small things can alter the face of the world". As an undergraduate studying Architecture and Urban Design at the German University in Cairo, I have grown particularly interested in how urban space is deeply intertwined with socio-political dynamics. With most of the world residing in cities, I not only felt personally enmeshed as a citizen, or enthused as an urbanist, but I also feel deeply obliged to enhance the built environment and actively engage with the community across scales and social spectrums. I believe that this demands a continuous and thorough study of how cities function and are inhabited. As an Urban Studies student at Cambridge, I aim to research developing new cities and shed light on the Cairo unseen, by studying the often overlooked spatial manifestations of grassroots initiatives. I believe that academic efforts can and should inform more resilient approaches for policymakers and designers, to include the urban poor in Cairo and its many parallels worldwide. I believe it takes many small people with big ambitions and opportunities, such as the Cambridge Gates Fund, to impact the world.

Previous Education

German University in Cairo Architecture and Urban Design 2019
German University in Cairo Architecture and Urban Design 2017

My principal goal will be to contribute in the area of the prediction of construction related damage to nearby already-existing structures. I will be working to make the introduction of new infrastructure in highly congested rural areas a safe and well predicted job instead of a risky and costly task. Working in one of the best research groups in the world and living in a society which provides an endless source of inspiration, provides a very high potential for a valuable contribution.

I have always been fascinated by wildlife and wild places since my childhood. Growing up in a rural community in Nigeria, I had the first-hand opportunity to interact with nature. Unfortunately, during my early teenage years, these places were fast disappearing, including the wild animals that lived in them. This was my motivation to study Forestry and Wildlife Management for my bachelor’s degree. After my degree in Nigeria, I completed the Durrell Endangered Species Management Graduate Certificate at the Durrell Wildlife Academy in Jersey, United Kingdom (validated by the University of Kent), and an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at the University of Oxford. Focused on Cross River gorilla conservation in the Cross River rainforest, I worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society, Nigeria for about two years prior to my MSc.

During my Ph.D. in Zoology, I seek to understand the population dynamics and ecology of three pangolin species in Nigeria. My research also aims to understand the role Nigeria plays in the trade of pangolins which are currently the most illegally traded mammals. This study will shed important new light on the drivers and characteristics of the trade in pangolins in Nigeria which will be useful in implementing behavioural change interventions and enforcement actions against the trade.

Previous Education

University of Oxford Biodiversity, Conservation/Mgt 2019
The University of Kent Durrell Endangered Species Mgt 2018
Cross River University of Tech Forestry and Wildlife Mgt 2016

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