While officially majoring in economics with a minor in applied mathematics, I completed requirements for a BA in philosophy at Princeton. At Cambridge I wrote my Mphil. thesis on the communicative dimension to blame and holding people morally responsible. I was supervised by Simon Blackburn. I am pursuing a JD at Yale Law School. I intend to ultimately pursue a PhD in philosophy to supplement the JD, exploring the role of responsibility and freedom in both criminal law and moral theory
I am excited to be furthering my studies at Cambridge this year with an MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development. My research for my honours thesis involved addressing renewable energy options for the State of Victoria. I explored the potential for Victoria to become carbon neutral by harnessing its natural resources, such as wind and solar energy. I presented a paper on my research at the ISPRS/IGU Joint Conference in Hong Kong, 2010. I undertook a student exchange to Lund University, Sweden, where I witnessed a socially and environmentally effective approach to transport and urbanisation. Prior to coming to Cambridge, I was working as an engineer for VicRoads, where I was involved in major infrastructure development including construction of a major bridge, incorporating road, rail and river networks. I seek to help transform trends in urbanisation and transport through sustainable development. I am eager to commence my studies and become involved in life at Cambridge.
I was born and raised in a village among the beautiful Dolomiti Mountains near the city of Trento, but I studied at the University of Padova where I obtained a BA in Psychology and an MA in Clinical Psychology. During my studies, I developed an interest in difficulties experienced during schooling and in the electrophysiology of mathematical cognition. My PhD research at the Centre for Neuroscience in Education will be at the confluence of these two interests. I will study the characteristics of the physiological reactions of students experiencing high anxiety in relation to mathematics. In particular, I will focus on gender differences and I will assess whether biofeedback techniques can be used to overcome such a difficulty. At university I taught Italian to immigrants through charities, motivated by the firm belief that learning how to speak the local language is the first step that helps in the process of integration.
https://sites.google.com/site/peelenlab
http://www.cne.psychol.cam.ac.uk
As a scholar, my research explored the US and EU's divergent regulatory policies on agricultural biotechnologies and its impact on the trade and regulatory schemes of food scarce regions in Southeast Asia. Prior to Cambridge, I worked in Southeast Asia on rural development projects. I am enormously grateful for having had the opportunity to learn from and become friends with generous, hard-working, and dynamic students from around the world through this scholarship. It's always a pleasure to give back to this community, so please feel free to let me know if I can be of any support to you.
University of Chicago
I’m a biologist with a deep affinity for design. Growing up in Zhengzhou and Los Angeles, both cities plagued by smog, I became keenly concerned about climate change and those who suffer its numerous consequences. As a student of biology at Georgetown University, I’ve witnessed unprecedented melting of the Greenlandic Ice Sheet and studied thriving microbial communities in the extreme cold of Antarctica. In this era of climate urgency, I’m convinced that knowledge of biology can help us build diverse, productive, and resilient human habitats. I bring this conviction to Cambridge, where I will study how people interact with bio-designed technologies, architecture, and landscapes in order to understand how designers, architects, and planners can create truly sustainable — and dignified — cities.
Georgetown University Scientiae Baccalaureus Biology 2017
In 2017, I worked with the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), Srinagar, where I drafted an International Law manual on Enforced Disappearances. Participating in APDP’s engagements with the OHCHR taught me about the potential of international legal institutions. However, the everyday experience of observing a state against a society reinforced the explanatory limits of purely doctrinal legal scholarship. This was a transformative experience. These encounters combined with my time at Jindal Law School and the University of Melbourne have motivated and equipped me to pursue a doctoral project interrogating the historical trajectories of international law through the Indus Waters Treaty, 1960. The Treaty, signed by India, Pakistan and the World Bank, divides access to the waters of the lucrative Indus basin flowing through the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir. Both states claim ownership over Kashmir but neither involved Kashmiri voices while dividing waters crucial to socio-cultural lives in the Valley. This project will reflect my continued political and scholarly commitment to interrogating large historiographical questions by taking the lives and aspirations of ordinary people -Kashmiris- seriously.
After transferring from Schreyer Honors College at PSU to University of Pittsburgh for a neuroscience degree, I helped investigate biomarkers for psychosis by processing auditory evoked potentials and brain imaging. I later conducted biochemical research on synaptic protein interaction in learning and memory formation. These experiences prepared me for the data driven, neurochemical nature of my MPhil with Mr. Adel Helmy, inspired by observing surgeries and volunteering on hospital floors with patients being treated for nervous system injuries of varying severity; I questioned the impact of neuroinflammation on outcomes. Insight into neurotrauma is urgent because of the expected increase in its global incidence and it being one of the most abrupt causes of significant disability despite preventability and treatability. My aims are to use data from the largest cerebral microdialysis-monitored cohort to elucidate post-TBI correlations between brain metabolites and outcomes to guide intervention preventing inflammation and deterioration and to progress resource-stratified clinical guidelines for neurotrauma in low- and middle-income countries where there is threefold the incidence of TBI and associated mortality.
I was raised in New Zealand, and studied science at university with the goal of doing research in condensed matter physics. During my time at Cambridge I completed part iii of the mathematics tripos, and exposure to a broad range of research topics led me to pursue a career studying living systems from a physics based perspective. For my doctoral work I am studying microbial growth, and am excited to be a part of the burgeoning field of quantitative biology.
I spent my childhood outdoors, digging up every rock I could find and exploring the mountains of south-eastern Pennsylvania. These experiences grew into a lifelong desire to understand the most basic processes that shape the earth. As an undergraduate, I have conducted research on a variety of related topics, from sea level rise to a more recent gas monitoring study of geothermal features at Yellowstone National Park. As a 2016-18 Hollings Scholar, I interned with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research team to model seafloor deformation leading up the 2015 eruption of Axial Seamount in the Northeast Pacific. From 2015 through 2018, I have worked to reassess the structure, scale, and environmental impact of the Deccan Traps, an extinct volcanic province in western India. During my PhD I will seek to explain the systematic behaviour of trace metals in active volcanic systems. This model will synthesize existing trace metal emissions data with novel field and laboratory techniques. The aim of this project is to further our understanding of ore body development and the impact of volcanic emissions on human health. This work also has the potential to provide new tools monitoring agencies can use to forecast eruptions. I am incredibly honoured to receive the prestigious Gates Cambridge scholarship, and I look forward to drawing on the diverse perspectives of my fellow scholars as I work to safeguard volcanically-threatened populations.
Drexel University
Harvard University
University of Pennsylvania BAS Int'l Econ & Fin Systems Engineering, BSE Finance Statistics 2002
Growing up in Damascus, Syria, I immigrated to the United States when I was seventeen in September 2015. Completing my senior year at Wheeling High School in the U.S., I enrolled at UIC pursuing a bachelor's degree with a double major in biology and chemistry and minor in mathematics. I was fascinated by the immense potential in developing novel analytical chemical and mathematical tools to solve pressing biomedical problems. Starting my first year of college, I have conducted research on diabetic eye disease while volunteering at an ophthalmology clinic to serve patients of the same life-changing, blindness-causing disease conditions. Through these experiences, I found an articulation of my interests in patient-driven research that considers both the biochemical and socioeconomic lenses. Through the MPhil in Genomic Medicine at Cambridge, I hope to visualize the molecular, analytical, statistical, social, and clinical challenges facing the use of omics-based personalized medicine across everyday clinics. Professionally, I intend to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. advancing biochemical and computational technologies to address currently incurable diseases, and contributing to the crafting of a new era of healthcare without disparities.
University of Illinois-Chicago Biology and Chemistry 2020
My experiences travelling between my native country of Colombia and the United States have made me distinctly aware of the inequalities among different countries. These experiences combined with my interest in the natural environment have formed the foundation of my interest in the field of development and environment. I hope that my research at Cambridge will provide me with the tools to influence development patterns so that they become more environmentally and socially responsible.