Directory

During my undergraduate studies at the University of Belgrade, School of Medicine, I have found myself taking an interest in the study of diabetes, being driven by the idea of improving the quality of lives of patients suffering from this disabling disease that affects millions of people everywhere around us. Impaired awareness of hypoglycaemia in many long-standing insulin-treated diabetic patients is one of the barriers separating them from achieving tight glycaemic control, which is imperative in reducing the occurrence and severity of micro and macrovascular complications. Throughout my MPhil at the University of Cambridge, Department of Medicine, I will focus on elucidating the mechanisms of blunted awareness of hypoglycaemia. Unravelling this problem would make a big step towards the start of development of therapeutic options to treat or even prevent it. I would be elated if my research and efforts contribute to this goal. It is an absolute honour to be a part of the Gates Cambridge community, comprised of inspiring and devoted scholars from all over the world, united for the greatest cause - improving the lives of others.

Previous Education

University of Belgrade

Obesity is now a worldwide epidemic which is associated with a number of health complications, including diabetes, hypertension and cancer. Collectively, these diseases represent a major public health problem, being the main causes of morbidity and mortality in the Western world. Over the past decade, enormous advances have been made in our understanding of the molecular regulation of mammalian body weight with special emphasis on the hypothalamus as a centre of neuronal control of body weight and appetite. In my PhD studies, I aim to identify novel components of the homeostatic system that regulates body weight, specifically within the hypothalamus.

Growing up in New York City and South India, I developed a lifelong appreciation for biodiversity and curiosity about global change. I completed my B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, where I conducted research on South and Southeast Asian mammal biogeography. Upon graduating in 2020, I worked on COVID-19 response at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. This work experience, supplemented by my academic background in organismal biology, led me to explore the human-wildlife interface where viral spillover occurs. I am now pursuing a PhD in Biology at the Department of Veterinary Medicine at Cambridge. My thesis centers on the relationship between ecology and viral emergence, with a focus on zoonotic paramyxoviruses in fruit bats. I am particularly interested in the use of natural history museum collections for viral surveillance and host prediction. I strongly believe in accessible and inclusive science, especially in the form of creative science communication and outreach. I look forward to collaborating with the Gates Cambridge community to tackle pressing issues at the intersection of public and planetary health.

Previous Education

Yale University Ecology & Evolutionary Biology 2020

Links

http://mayajuman.github.io

I received my Bachelor's Degree from Quest University Canada where I pursued majors in Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind. I obtained my MPhil in Medical Science from the University of Cambridge, where I conducted research as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. When I returned to Canada, I obtained my Medical Degree at the University of British Columbia, where I conducted research on women's health, integrated medicine, and end-of-life care.

Between formal educational engagements, I traveled to remote communities in Siberia, guided expeditions in Mongolia for National Geographic, and pilgrimaged in Nepal.

I am currently completing my residency in the Yellowknife Rural Family Medicine program in the NWT on the traditional lands of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. My interests include medical ethics, wilderness medicine, integrative medicine, and moments of vulnerability.

Previous Education

Quest University Canada

I was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. When I reached the age of 14 my family moved to Israel, where I developed interest in biotechnology which I took as an elective module during high school. I am currently a final year student on BEng in Biomaterial Science at Sheffield University and I am excited to start an MPhil in Materials Science and Metallurgy within Cambridge Centre of Medical Materials from fall 2013. I am extremely grateful to Gates Cambridge Trust for this opportunity and I am looking forward to develop my skills and knowledge in order to contribute to the innovations in healthcare.

From a young age, I was keenly aware that the neat categories that bound and define our sense of belonging--ideas like "home," "nation," and "family"--were much more complex and difficult for some than for others. My experience growing up as a refugee from Bosnia and Herzegovina in Tucson, Arizona, gave me the opportunity to understand how political geography is produced in the everyday, through acts of inclusion and exclusion small and large. When I began my studies at the University of Arizona, I learned that such quotidian experiences were of enormous value to scholars trying to understand how political geographic realities that we take for granted are enacted and reproduced. As an MPhil student in geography at Cambridge, my work has focused on using participatory video to bring out how actually-existing political contestations over urban space and belonging play out among youth in Sarajevo. In my PhD, I hope to continue this engagement in Bosnia and expand it to Istanbul, Turkey, where a set of shared histories and contemporary struggles beckons for research that can think about how young people navigate nationalist politics and everyday material struggles across contexts. My experiences as a Gates scholar have been some of the most enriching in my life, and I am honoured to return to this community.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Geographical Research 2019
University of Arizona Geography and Africana Studies 2018

Working in the Indian Parliament, I saw my ‘research’ translate into social change and action. My academic and work experience spanning the last five years at the intersections of digital technology, the gig economy, and the future of work and caste is motivated by the pursuit of action-oriented research. As a Cambridge Trust and Commonwealth Scholar (2022-23) at the University of Cambridge, I explored the spatial and temporal structures of platform work by placing the gig economy in the caste society of India. This was inspired by my previous work at University of Oxford’s Fairwork Foundation studying platform economy, the Centre for Internet and Society and the Parliament actively contributing to parliamentary interventions advocating the rights of seven million gig workers in India. During my PhD, I wish to take forward my research on caste in the gig economy through an ethnography of home-based platform services. I aim to understand how caste and the structures of the gig economy co-produce each other while reordering social, bodily, and sensorial relations of work. Using ethnographic evidence, I aim to create a better future of work — informing state policies, digital labour platforms, and consumers of the gig economy.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Modern South Asian Studies 2023
University of Delhi Political Science 2021

Links

https://research.sociology.cam.ac.uk/profile/damni-kain-2024
https://www.linkedin.com/in/damni-kain-b21a73220/?originalSubdomain=uk

My professional experience at highest levels of policy helped me realize the influential role of de-facto power dynamics and informal institutions in shaping development outcomes, especially in fragile contexts. This spurred my interest in comparative politics of development. In my PhD, I seek to understand the political economy of sub-national state capacity through a comparative study of education policy in two Pakistani provinces: Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Despite a common history and social composition, these provinces exhibit differing capacities for improving education outcomes. Through a 'political settlement analysis,' I aim to unravel the drivers behind this variation.My interest in sub-national state effectiveness stems from my upbringing in a remote village along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, where conflict and state fragility were pervasive. While my academic journey—from Government College University Lahore to the University of Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship—enabled me to escape the fragility trap, many others remain ensnared.I eagerly anticipate joining the Gates community & leveraging its diverse network to bridge the gap between academia, policy and media. I enjoy cricket, hiking and evening walks

Previous Education

University of Oxford Governance & Development 2015
University of Oxford Public Policy 2014

Jess Blokland (nee Kalata) was a 2009 Gates Scholar in the International Relations program. She is a US-born political scientist specialized in transatlantic security policy and democratic theory. Concerned with plummeting rates of political participation across modern democracies and the lack of transnational publics in a globalized world, in April 2015 she founded the social enterprise Art is Activism to promote social and political art as a modern medium of democratic participation and social change. She is in the process of creating a transnational, nonprofit platform for activist artwork and building a global network to connect activist artists with social movements and their target publics. Jess currently resides in Potsdam, Germany, where she is finishing up her doctorate on the party politics of German external security policy. She is a member of Impact Hub Berlin and the German Mompreneurs network for female entreprenuers with children.

When my grandfather was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, I was driven to deepen my understanding of human cognition to develop solutions that could help people like him. At The Johns Hopkins University, I pursued a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering, Applied Mathematics and Statistics, and Economics, developing interdisciplinary skills to achieve my goals. Through my research, I explored the largely unknown processes underlying human decision-making under uncertainty. As a Gates Cambridge Scholar, I will pursue a PhD in Engineering, building upon my past research by investigating how humans form internal representations of uncertainty and developing computational models that emulate such representations. Improving our understanding of how the brain tracks uncertainty is crucial to advancing our understanding of human cognition in health and disease, and will pave the way for developing trustworthy and energy-efficient artificial intelligence. While at Cambridge, I will also work to expand STEM outreach initiatives in under-resourced communities and lead dialogue on developing responsible AI regulatory policies. In my free time, I hope to work on my jazz improv skills on the piano!

Previous Education

Johns Hopkins University Biomedical Engineering, Applied Mathematics & Statistics, Economics 2023

My research experience in viral genetics and my desire to make a meaningful intervention in guiding public health responses to epidemics has led me to the PhD program in Medicine at the University of Cambridge. During my MSc degree at the University of British Columbia, I investigated the utility and limitations of sequencing in monitoring circulating viruses. I found myself drawn to the field of viral genomics and the applications of sequencing. I became aware of the power of technology when I observed the direct impact a change in prescription, put forth after detection of drug resistance, can have in the life of an individual living with HIV. My experiences left an indelible mark as I realized that my research could influence clinical practice. My future aim is to expand on the utility of viral sequencing, either for diagnostics and guiding of prescribed regimens or for surveillance purposes, and contribute to communities that are not extensively studied or studied prospectively to reduce health disparities. I am incredibly honored to join the Gates Cambridge community, and I look forward to sharing knowledge with future global leaders across multiple disciplines.

Previous Education

University of British Columbia Experimental Medicine 2019
University of British Columbia Integrated Sciences 2016

I got a lifetime opportunity to work towards a PhD degree in Biochemistry, the field that inspires me the most. I strongly believe that our better understanding of the mechanisms that regulate translation of proteins in cells can have a tremendous number of implications. I hope that the unique expirience Cambridge Department of Biochemistry provides will help me to develop as a cutting-edge scientist. I am excited to become a part of a powerful Gates Scholars network and want to commit and gain the most of it.

My interest in sociotechnical research first emerged as an undergraduate sociology major at Davidson College. This led me to my role at Point of View, a Mumbai based nonprofit, where I worked to build knowledge on the digital experiences of women and gender diverse people in India, and advocate for digital rights and freedoms. Through my work and research, I have a firsthand understanding of how technological infrastructures exacerbate unequal power hierarchies, and I am committed to creating change. To that end, I am pursuing an MPhil in Ethics of AI, Data, and Algorithms at Cambridge. I will explore how AI can be used to benefit the Global Majority, and what alternative, feminist imaginaries of AI systems can look like. I am deeply honoured and grateful to be a part of the Gates Cambridge community, and look forward to building a better world together.

Previous Education

Davidson College Sociology

My curiosity about how people think and behave evolved into a desire to study the brain, which I explored as an undergraduate at Vassar College. Fascinated by the prospect of beginning to understand the neural basis of psychiatric disorders, I explored the field after graduation in the lab of Elizabeth Phelps at New York University. I obtained a compelling sense of how animal studies can be translated into human neuroscience to uncover the roots of mental illness, and became inspired to pursue a career as a psychiatrist and researcher. I have completed a substantial portion of my MD degree at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, which I will finish after Cambridge, before pursuing specialization in psychiatry. During my PhD I will integrate pharmacological and neuroimaging methods to examine the influence of the neurochemical serotonin on emotional and behavioral flexibility. Serotonergic drugs are among the most common medications I will prescribe yet the precise role of serotonin in mental illness and its remediation is not completely understood. Complementing my MD training with PhD training at Cambridge will optimize my ability to increase communication between neuroscientists and psychiatrists. The Gates Cambridge Scholarship will make me a more impactful physician – helping patients beyond those who enter my office – by advancing our understanding of mental illness, and working to counter a formidable disease burden costly to individual sufferers and to society.

Previous Education

Vassar College
Cooper Medical School of Rowan University

I was born in the United States but moved back to South Korea after a few years, before finally coming to the UK. I am currently in my last year of my Natural Sciences at Cambridge degree specialising in Chemistry.Growing up, I was fascinated by the insects and birds I would see whilst hiking in the mountains in and around Seoul. Throughout my school life, this wonder and curiosity I had for the natural world evolved from the macroscopic to the microscopic – the fundamental chemical reactions that drives everything. Pursing my interests in chemistry led to my involvement in the Chemistry Olympiads, where I represented the UK in the International Chemistry Olympiad for two years. During this time, I began to appreciate the importance of organic synthesis, especially in the development and production of pharmaceuticals. For my PhD, I will be investigating new reactions and new reactivities in the context of biological systems. By explicitly targeting biomolecules, the aim is to not only discover and optimise relevant reactions but also expedite the process of new chemistry being used in therapeutic applications to improve and save lives.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Chemistry 2022

Originally from the sprawling metropolis of Daphne, Alabama, I studied biology at Harvard University. There, I worked in a structural virology laboratory, rationally designing immunogens for ssRNA viruses (primarily SARS-CoV-2, dengue, and influenza). In my PhD, I hope to leverage translational immunology to combat one of the most under-recognized public health threats in the world: agro-industrial chemical pollutants.In my graduate studies, I aim to develop active and passive immunotherapies targeting these persistent organic pollutants. Initially, I will investigate this question in the context of the acute toxicities of pesticides, a major health concern in rural areas. However, I hope to demonstrate that these methodologies are applicable to broad ranges of acutely and chronically toxic pollutants, ranging from agricultural chemicals to ubiquitous flame retardants, plasticizers, and surfactants which impose tremendous burdens on global health.Beyond the lab, I love to play music, write, and get outside as much as cell cultures will allow. I am exceptionally excited to grow while at Cambridge as a researcher, individual, and member of our global academic community!

Previous Education

Harvard University Biology

During my undergraduate and graduate studies at Makerere University in Uganda, I was fascinated by the gap between the literature we were taught and the literary texts that had currency on the Ugandan cultural scene. These texts were produced by an emerging generation of writers whom my university professors knew so little about and had so little interest in, yet these writers and their writing fraternities constituted the most vibrant literary ecosystem that resonated with contemporary publics. These were the writers dominating shortlists of literary prizes in the region. They associated themselves with non-academic, non-commercial literary organisations – LINGOs. I intend to use my PhD to explore the underbelly of this network of literary value in Africa by examining the institutional logic of these literary organisations in light of their posture as expressions of literary activism. By theorising literary activism in a LINGO framework, my PhD project shall help inform publishers, literary award organisations, writers and academics about the emerging literary enterprise in Africa. It will also help demonstrate how the LINGO framework is essential in reconfiguring cultural discourses and creating new spaces for free expression.

Previous Education

Makerere University Literature 2021
Makerere University Education - English Major 2016