Directory

My doctoral research at Cambridge University is in the rapidly advancing field of stem cell biology focussing on understanding the early stages of development of haematopoietic (blood) stem cells. My long-term career plan is to carry out clinically useful research and thus contribute significantly not only to science but also society at large.

I am delighted to be starting a PhD in Theoretical Physics at DAMTP, and honoured to do so as a Gates Scholar. My studies in Mathematics and Physics - in Paris, Toronto, and Oxford - have fascinated me by the way Physics brings intuition and meaning to Maths, while Maths provides rigour and precision as a strong backbone. Theoretical Physics, combining both, helps us to understand nature, predict experiments and even develop new technologies. At Cambridge, I am thrilled to dive into topological condensed matter theory, where certain quantum systems exhibit exotic and robust properties due to their topology. Understanding these new phases of matter is not only an intellectual challenge but also plays a key role in quantum information and quantum computing. Theoretical physics has an exciting chance to get close to technological research and practical applications through topology in condensed matter. I’m delighted to be involved in that!

Previous Education

Ecole Polytechnique Mathematics and Physics
University of Oxford Theoretical Physics
Ecole Normale Supérieure Theoretical Physics

Having completed my PhD in Geotechnical Engineering, I'm currently working as Chief Geotechnical Engineer in energy industry.

My Princeton University and Columbia University degrees weren’t the first to teach me that inequity in education opportunities and outcomes is wide-spread, yet poorly-addressed. Writing my college and scholarship essays on my smartphone and having my mother bus me to the best free advanced academic programs available outside my neighborhood taught me that. When coupled with biases in technology that scholars like Ruha Benjamin, Joy Buolamwini, and Timnit Gebru expose, the future of EdTech and its ability to widen educational divides and be complicit in anti-Black racism is concerning. This conviction will guide my Cambridge PhD research as I investigate the use of EdTech applications by out-of-school youth (OSY). In meditating on what I aim to accomplish in the realm of EdTech, I ultimately start by questioning and analyzing how we adapt technology to students’ learning needs, working alongside students to design interventions. Moreover, I will grapple with how education can be made more equitable and how research is more than a distorted reflection imagined by outsiders studying communities unfamiliar to them. Rather, it’s an interrogation of how the Western world relinquishes agency and legitimacy to these communities.

Previous Education

San Diego State University MA in Geography 2003
San Diego State University BA (hons) in Geography 2001

Dr Eric Jensen is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, where he teaches on research methods, media audiences and social change, and principles of public engagement with science. Eric has conducted evaluation studies at the National Gallery (London), Imperial War Museum, London Zoo, British Museum, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, University of Cambridge Museums, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Cheltenham Science Festival and Cambridge Science Festival (UK), and many other informal learning institutions, as well as commissioned research for UK government bodies, including Defra. His research has been published in dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles and books, including journals such as Nature, Visitor Studies, Public Understanding of Science, Conservation Letters and Conservation Biology. He has two forthcoming books with Cambridge University Press (‘Making the most of public engagement events and festivals’ and ‘From conservation education to public engagement with wildlife conservation’), and a research methods textbook just published by SAGE entitled 'Doing Real Research'. He has a PhD in sociology from the University of Cambridge.

Links

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/jensen
http://warwick.academia.edu/EricJensen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-jensen-15756b3

Born and raised in Denmark and having lived a year in the US, I moved to England to study Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge as an undergraduate student. After a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, I developed a passion for neuroscience as a Janelia Undergraduate Scholar in the US, where I studied how fruit flies navigate. I therefore decided to pursue a PhD in neuroscience, where I will make a move to slightly larger organisms to tackle some of the mysteries of the brain in the Cambridge Department of Engineering. Working in the Computational and Biological Learning Lab alongside researchers in both machine learning and computational neuroscience and drawing on the expertise of the Cambridge neuroscience community more broadly, I aim to improve our understanding of motor learning using tools from dynamical systems theory and control theory. Improving our knowledge of the motor system will help us further understand how we interact with a complex environment, while advances in basic neuroscience can also drive advances in more applied fields, such as artificial intelligence and clinical neuroscience.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Computational Biology 2019
University of Cambridge Natural Sciences 2018

My PhD dissertation consisted of essays on financial markets. I would like to thank the Gates Trust for making my research possible.

There is a Chinese proverb that states: 'When the winds of change blow, some build walls. Others build windmills.' In the wake of COVID-19, where attention was concentrated on taking stock of systemic losses and progress undone, my doctoral research examines cases of schools that successfully built windmills when faced with adversity. My work attempts to understand the mechanisms behind how educational institutions can move beyond the notion of resilience, i.e., withstanding and recovering from crisis, and instead learn to harness crisis as an opportunity for evolution. In doing so, it asks: In a world facing multifaceted, interconnected, and compounding upheavals, can we learn not just to survive crisis, but find a way to make it useful?

Previous Education

University of Cambridge MPhil Education (EGID) 2020
The University of Edinburgh MA Social Policy (with SPS) 2019

My career goal is to become a linguist who can view language teaching from the perspective of a practitioner and meanwhile, a practitioner who would like to see language teaching through a research lens. My broader research interests cover cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, applied linguistics, neurolinguistics and cognitive science. My more specific interests within linguistics include motion event typology, language and thought, universal versus language-specific influences in L1 and L2 acquisition, and semantics-syntax interface in motion discourses. Over my career, I did extensive research in the field of linguistics and cognitive science with particular reference to the relationship between language and thought as reflected in the specific domain of spatial expressions and conceptualisation.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge PhD (MPhil in the first instance) in English and Applied Linguistics 2009
Peking University MA English linguistics 2003

I developed a love for neuroscience while studying at Pomona College. Through various research projects, I explored several neurobiology topics during my undergraduate studies. As an HHMI EXROP Scholar, I investigated the neural circuitry of the pain pathway in the spinal cord at Harvard Medical School. During my third year as a visiting student at Oxford, I contributed to the structural discoveries of a novel synaptic formation protein complex involved in autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia. In my senior thesis, I examined the role of a neuroendocrine enzyme in peripheral ganglion formation at Caltech. As an aspiring neurosurgeon-scientist, I hope to understand the mechanisms of regeneration in the brain after neural damage. While much current research focuses on neurogenesis, to functionally recover the brain after trauma and illness, remyelination is key. In my PhD, I hope to profile neural-glial communication in health and disease and understand the role of myelin using the optic nerve as a model.

Previous Education

Pomona College
University of Cambridge

My interests lie in the crisis in Spanish politics, society and identity that begins after the loss of the last remaining colonies in 1898. They also lie in the ways in which we as Spaniards can form a modern conception of what being Spanish means. This new conception should come from a re-evaluation of the Spanish liberal tradition and of its relationship with those of England and the United States. For all these purposes, Ramiro de Maeztu is ideal: of the generation of intellectuals of 1898, and all the way until the Spanish Civil War, he was the one most interested in the Anglo-Saxon world. He was very concerned with the institutional and cultural problems of Spain, and for a while tried to apply the English model to them. Maeztu can help us understand why Spain devolved towards the gradual breakdown of institutions and the radicalization that led to the civil war, instead of taking the path of progressive and consensual reforms of the Anglo-Saxon model.

My passion for building bridges combines my academic interests in structural engineering with my love of water and the hope I find in our human ability to overcome physical barriers to build integrated communities. After my bachelors in Civil Engineering, I started a social enterprise producing ISSB bricks in Zambia following my work in MIT’s International Development Lab. After returning for a Master in Structural Engineering, I worked with NGOs in Bolivia and the Philippines where engineering solutions targeting neglected poor communities could alleviate poverty and reduce casualties from natural disasters. After working for an engineering firm in Washington DC, I returned to the Philippines on a Fulbright scholarship to improve indigenous housing to withstand typhoons. My course at Cambridge University will build on my international engineering experiences to support my mission of bridging the gap between engineering solutions and the people who need them most around the world.

Previous Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Masters Structural Engineering 2010
Massachusetts Institute of Technology BSc Civil Engineering 2006

I have always admired the incredible resilience, adaptability, and complexity of life. While studying biological engineering and electrical engineering & computer science at MIT, I started to think of nature itself as a master engineer, spending billions of years perfecting the mechanisms that have sustained life. Working at the interface of biology and electronics allows for powerful treatments that can address serious gaps in medicine. For my research in bioelectronics, I plan to develop medical technology for targeted drug delivery to the brain. This approach opens up a myriad of applications—improving treatment for brain cancers, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and neurodegenerative diseases. I look towards building networks of problem solvers as a Gates Scholar to adapt medicine around the world.

Previous Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Biological Engineering 2021