Gates Scholars join Newnham MCR

We are pleased to welcome two Gates Scholars to Newnham this year, selected for the prestigious programme which prioritises research demonstrating a commitment to improving the lives of others.

Friederike Hedley is studying for a PhD in Psychology which uses data-driven computational modelling to explore how uncertainty is processed during development and how that might link to anxiety.

“Learning under uncertainty is a core daily demand. In an ever-changing world, we must learn to deal with it,“ she said. “I aim to look at how learning under uncertainty is represented in the developing brain; and how anxiety arises as a maladaptive function; as well as mitigating factors when uncertainty is unavoidable.”

Friederike grew up in a small harbour town in the marshlands of northern Germany, a steadfast childhood on the banks of the river Weser. She said she began to develop the ideas for her research when she moved to Hong Kong and started an MPhil in the wake of the city’s 2019-2020 protests.

“I interviewed people for whom that same consistency was absent. My research focused on the cognitive processing of individuals who were affected by internalising psychopathology. In Cambridge, I am thrilled to join Prof. Rebecca Lawson’s Prediction and Learning Lab and contribute to a better understanding of anxiety, one of the world’s most prevalent mental disorders.”

Her compatriot Paula Suchantke is a Polar Studies PhD candidate, after completing a MPhil degree in Polar Studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute. 

She said, “I focus on the stability of ice shelves in Antarctica; using remote sensing and machine learning techniques I will set out to produce a continent-wide, three-dimensional dataset of meltwater storage and potential flow pathways on Antarctic ice shelves. In this way, I endeavour to further our understanding of the sensitivity of the Antarctic ice sheet to anthropogenic climate change and contribute to a growing body of scientific literature that informs policymaking in a time of environmental crisis.”

Each year Gates Cambridge offers around 80 scholarships to outstanding applicants from outside the UK to pursue a postgraduate degree. The scholarship programme was established in 2000 by a donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. For more information visit Gates Cambridge.

There is more information about Newnham and Cambridge postgraduate funding and financial support here.