Gates Cambridge Scholarship

Ninety-two of the most academically exceptional and socially committed people from across the globe have been selected as Gates Cambridge Scholars - the University of Cambridge's most prestigious international postgraduate scholarship.

The new Scholars, who will take up their generous scholarships in the autumn, are a very diverse group, representing 28 nationalities. Forty three are male and 49 female. They include the first Scholars from Gambia, Georgia and Morocco.

Sixty-six will pursue a PhD and 26 will study for a master's degree. The subjects being studied range from anthrax in cattle, multi-protein complexes and Argentinian cinema to how Syrian refugees negotiate their temporary status.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship aims to identify and select applicants who are academically outstanding and are likely to be transformative leaders across all fields of endeavour.

Competition for the Scholarships is fierce. The 92 new Scholars were selected from a total pool of 5,798 applicants on the basis of their intellectual ability, commitment to improving the lives of others, leadership potential and academic fit with Cambridge. Departments in Cambridge nominated 423 candidates for the Scholarships and, of these, 201 were interviewed in the US and Cambridge by four panels of interviewers drawn from across the University.

The five new Sidney Scholars are Michael Antosiewicz, Mamasa Camara, Pooja Gupta, Samuel Kebede, and Vaithish Velazhahan. Vaithish's research achievements have been showcased on the University of Cambridge feature article http://www.cam.ac.uk/Gates2018.

Biographies of all the new Scholars are available from the New Scholars page https://www.gatescambridge.org/our-scholars/new-scholars.