Directory

After growing up in Ecuador I was fortunate to have the opportunity to pursue an undergraduate and master’s degree in Computer Science at Cornell University. It was during this time that I was first introduced to the untapped potential of machine learning algorithms and their applications in both academia and industry. As I continued to explore these methods as an early employee of a machine learning startup and as an MPhil student in Cambridge, it became abundantly clear to me that the deployment of these algorithms is often constrained by their lack of interpretability. This is perhaps most limiting in healthcare settings, where transparency and accountability are of utmost importance. During my PhD I wish to explore ways to design high-performing machine learning systems that can learn to explain their decisions using concepts that are intuitive to users. If successful, the deployment of such systems in day-to-day medical diagnosis could not only provide opportunities for early intervention in critical patients but may also open new leads for research in fields outside of medicine. The possibility of achieving these prospects, and the challenge they represent, make this research something I am incredibly excited to pursue.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Advanced Computer Science 2021
Cornell University Computer Science 2017

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mateoespinosa
https://mateoespinosa.github.io

As an archaeologist of indigenous descent, I am committed to improving the lives of Andean communities by empowering them to assert their cultural rights. During my ten years of professional experience in Peru’s Ministry of Culture, I have collaborated with Indigenous people on projects to preserve archaeological sites and landscapes that are crucial to their cultural identity and well-being. Engagement in such projects enables communities to participate in heritage decision-making, fostering their sense of citizenship. From colonial times, Peruvian society has been characterised by systemically discriminating Indigenous people. So, I firmly believe heritage is a powerful instrument to tackle this, granting communities a platform to become political actors by speaking out, being heard, and caring for their cultural properties.I am also interested in unravelling the role of heritage and the politics of the past in contemporary Peru. Using a mixed research methodology (ethnographic data, archival research, and statistics), I am studying how closely heritage is related to the modernisation of the Peruvian state in the 20th century, periods of widespread state violence, and Neo-extractivism.

Previous Education

Universidad de San Marcos Archaeology 2022
Universidad de San Marcos Archaeology 2014

Shannon Esswein is an MD-PhD Candidate in the University of California, Los Angeles-California Institute of Technology Medical Scientist Training Program. She uses biochemistry and structural biology to investigate protein structures relevant for understanding mechanisms of disease and identifying new therapeutic targets. In her undergraduate research at the University of California, Los Angeles, Shannon studied the molecular pathogenesis of immunoglobulin light-chain amyloid fibrils implicated in systemic light-chain amyloidosis disease and the blood cancer multiple myeloma. Subsequently, during her M.Phil. research at Cambridge, she investigated non-homologous end joining, a repair system for DNA double strand breaks that can be used by cancer cells to decrease the effectiveness of radiation therapy. As part of this research, Shannon identified small molecules that may inhibit this repair system for use in combination therapy. Now, as a Ph.D. Candidate at California Institute of Technology, she is studying the immune response to Zika and other viruses using cryo-electron microscopy. Shannon aims to apply biomedical research towards advancing treatment options and improving patient care as a physician-scientist.

Previous Education

University of California, Los Angeles B.S. Physiological Science 2013

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-esswein

I am a junior naval officer and member of the Arctic Ocean Geopolitics Programme at the Scott Polar Research Institute. Recently, I have been exploring the increasingly dangerous gap between national and international maritime governance structures in the ice-diminishing Arctic Ocean. After my studies, I will serve in the U.S. Submarine Force.

I’m particularly interested in the genetic and environmental determinants of common diseases and the translation of research into primary care and public health practice. At Cambridge I will pursue an MPhil in epidemiology to prepare for a career in genetic epidemiology and public health genetics. I hope to work with the CDC’s Center for Genomics & Disease Prevention or the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH to understand and resolve the complex genetic conditions of special populations. Next fall I will return to the United States to begin a PhD program in Human Genetics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

I strongly believe in the power of modern diplomacy to prevent and resolve conflict and address challenges. But diplomacy must evolve to meet the changing needs of a globalized world and adapt to new realities that are characterized by the emergence of non-traditional non-state actors, the increase of IT and social media, interdependent economies, and environmental and global health concerns. Another key issue to be addressed is the gross underrepresentation of women in leadership and their lacking participation in diplomatic efforts, into which issue I gained extensive insight during my internship at UN-Women. Progress can be achieved by making diplomatic practice more transparent, inclusive, and accessible, allowing for innovative and creative collaboration among relevant diplomatic levels and actors in efforts to tackle complex new challenges. As a Palestinian-German woman and aspiring peace mediator, I wish to contribute to the evolution of diplomacy to better uphold human rights and respond to humanitarian and societal concerns. Having grown up in Palestine under conflict, I experienced firsthand its detrimental, multi-faceted impact on people's lives. For my research, I will analyze arguments that link conflict to ethnic identity while examining the role of leadership.

Previous Education

Connecticut College International Relations 2019
Connecticut College Architectural Studies 2019

What if the law itself is the ultimate form of illegality? Rules shape everything: what you wear, what you eat, the planes you fly in. Thousands of people must cooperate under shared rules for any of this to work. We rely on these norms to produce a coherent whole, like a machine that takes behaviour as input and returns a verdict: legal or illegal. This engine runs on binary code, classifying the world into dualities: public and private, sovereign and subject, land and sea, crime and punishment, war and peace. But sometimes it produces a result that cannot be traced back to its own logic. A conclusion that breaks free from the premises on which it was built. I research these moments of rupture, where international law loops back on itself, contradicts its own foundations, and escapes the very rules it claims to impose. From oil investment contracts in the 1960s Middle East, to the fallout of 9/11 in humanitarian law; from Japanese control of the South Pacific, to the race for wealth in outer space, I trace these paradoxes. I search for a theory of law that insists on negating itself. Neither positivism nor structuralism can quite explain them. But thinkers like Hegel, Žižek, and Badiou might have seen it coming. These contradictions are not exceptions, I think. They are what happens when positive law reaches its limit. And so, I wonder — what remains?

Previous Education

Queen Mary, University of London International Disputes 2020
Amazon Federal University Law 2018

After earning her PhD from the University of Cambridge, Hilary moved to ABQMR, Inc., a company renowned for designing and building magnetic resonance (MR) equipment for custom – often exotic – applications, such as monitoring pollution through arctic sea ice using helicopter-borne MR and imaging plant root structures through natural soils in greenhouses and the agricultural field. In 2020, she was elected president. Hilary enjoys the diversity of her research at ABQMR applying MR to a variety of industrially relevant problems.

Previous Education

Montana State University Chemical Engineering 2011

Links

https://abqmr.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilary-fabich

Born and bred in Moscow, I moved to Cambridge to read for the Theological Tripos, followed by the Hebrew Bible MPhil in the Divinity Faculty. It did not take me long to fall in love with the exhilarating academic environment at Cambridge, and I was excited and honoured to join the Gates Cambridge community to do my PhD here as well. My academic interests centre on the literature, language, history, and religion of ancient Israel from its origins to the Second Temple Period. My work revolves particularly around the scribal culture behind the production of the Hebrew Bible.

Product leader and creative technologist working at the intersection of design and data. Most recently served as the Director of Product Operations and Analytics at Artsy, a startup working to bring all the world's art online and make it freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

I recently graduated with BSc Mathematics from the University of Warwick and at Cambridge I intend to further expand my knowledge of mathematics by studying for Part III of the Mathematical Tripos. My main areas of interest are probability theory and combinatorics and I believe that Part III will be an excellent culmination of my preparation for PhD study. On completion of Part III, I expect to be equipped with a wide range of powerful mathematical knowledge and skills, eager to start working on my own contribution to the world of mathematics.

I am studying the interdependence between technology and organizational processes in developing countries. My PhD research looks at the implementation of information systems in two developmental domains in Morocco: health care coverage and the justice system. I have an engineering background with work experience in the biomedical and the aeronautic industries. I am married and have two children.

I grew up in a small, tight-knit town in North Texas. With the support of family and friends, I earned my B.A. in Government and B.S. in Environmental Science from UT Austin. During undergrad, I was an advocate, a student researcher, and a caregiver. I grew my community, and my mentors helped me find my niche: carbon cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. At Cambridge, I look forward to furthering our understanding of carbon storage in peatlands. These ecosystems are enormous stores of C and have the potential to mediate climates if protected. Through machine learning, I aim to connect micro-scale chemical measurements with remote sensing to estimate carbon budgets in ‘pristine’ and ‘restored’ bogs. Being a Gates Scholar is a generational honor. I attended university due to a college fund my great grandfather created. He was a share cropper and military member, yet saw great value in education despite his lack thereof. Recently, I was given his autobiography. I’d like to thank Gates by sharing some of his words: “It is my hope and prayer that my great-grandchildren get a college education. Pops is sure that you will take advantage of this resource and will be an asset to your community and nation.”

Previous Education

University of Texas at Austin Government 2025
University of Texas Austin Environmental Science, Geology 2025

Growing up in a developing country, I was deeply impressed by how science and technology have improved the quality of people’s life. On the other hand, as I was volunteering in science education in remote villages, I also realized education and medical care are distributed unequally in some undeveloped regions. With my ultimate goal of making everyone around the world have equal right to basic medical care, I was determined to become a medical scientist and to develop useful and affordable therapies to improve people’s lives. I am excited and honoured to be joining the Gates Cambridge community for my PhD after my undergraduate study in Xiamen University, China. During my PhD in Professor Lalita Ramakrishnan’s lab, I will work on improving and possibly discovering new therapies for tuberculosis infection. As one of the oldest known human infectious diseases, tuberculosis continues being a leading cause of death from infectious diseases. It caused about 1.3 million deaths and 10.4 million infection cases in 2016 (WHO 2017). Nowadays, the rapid increase of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis strains is the main challenge in the battle against this disease. I will mainly focus on host innate immune reactions against bacterial infection. By targeting on the key molecules and pathways in host immune system, I hope to provide new ideas in the treatment of tuberculosis, including multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.

Previous Education

Xiamen University

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jingwen-fan-778290118

I am from Hefei City, a medium-sized city in the Yangtze River Delta Plain in the People's Republic of China. I went to Haverford College in the United States for my undergraduate studies, and was a double major in history and chemistry. In Cambridge I am working on the cultural history of late imperial China, focusing on the interpretation of a particular literary genre, biji (notebook, or collection of miscellaneous articles), written in the Qing dynasty and early Republican China. After graduating from Cambridge I pursued a law degree at Stanford. I then returned to China to founded a history journal called the Oriental Historical Review (OHR). Currently I am the executive editor of the journal based in Beijiing.