We are delighted to report that our Kennedy Scholars for the 2024-25 academic year have commenced their studies and are embracing all that life in Cambridge has to offer. They are also really enjoying connecting both with local alumni – including taking up offers to join families at Thanksgiving – and those of you who visit.
Our six Scholars this year embrace a broad range of academic and professional interests, but are united by a determination to make a positive difference to society through their academic research and future careers. The Kennedy Trustees have also renewed Kennedy Scholarships for three 2023-24 Scholars for a second year, in order to complete their degrees.
Our Kennedy Scholars for 2024-25 are:
Chris Conway
Chris will be studying the politics and culture of Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. Chris read History at the University of Oxford, specialising in Russian and Central Asian history and receiving a Congratulatory First and a Gibbs Prize.
At Harvard University, Chris aims to deepen his understanding of contemporary Central Asia and Russia’s influence in the region, as well as the trajectory of current Russian foreign policy. He also plans to hone his spoken Russian. Having previously worked in business advisory and a policy think-tank, Chris looks forward to capitalising on Harvard’s interdisciplinary degree structure by cross-registering for classes at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. After Harvard, Chris hopes to pursue a career in the Diplomatic Service.
David Gayle
David is a Policy Adviser at the Bank of England where he leads analytical thinking on the Bank’s response to climate change and nature loss. David’s academic journey began at UCL where he graduated with First Class Honours in Greek and Latin. Recognising his potential, the Bank sponsored his pursuit of an MPhil. in Environmental Policy at the University of Cambridge in 2020 which facilitated his transition to environmental economics.
Since returning to the Bank from Cambridge, David has dedicated himself to addressing climate-related risks to the UK economy and leading impactful projects on racial equity. David won the Governor’s award for his work on the Bank’s links to transatlantic slavery and was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the Bank of England Ethnic Minorities Network in 2021. David served as an advisor to the Cambridge University Black Alumni Network in 2021-2.
David will undertake the Master in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. He aims to strengthen his expertise in public economics, equity, and politics, preparing himself for influential policy leadership roles on the national stage.
Euan Ong*
Euan is about to start working with the Alignment Science team at Anthropic, developing protocols for evaluating and monitoring the safety of highly-capable AI systems. He will pursue a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Professor Jacob Andreas and Professor Armando Solar-Lezama to discover structure and abstraction in large language models at scale.
Euan’s ambition is to solve ‘neuroscience for AI’: reverse-engineering powerful AI systems to make their ‘thought processes’ (i.e. their internal state and behaviour) transparent to the end-user. During his Computer Science degree at the University of Cambridge he collaborated with researchers from Cambridge and Google DeepMind to produce a body of work exploring how neural networks learn to perform abstract, algorithmic tasks. Euan has also been interested in widening access to undergraduate research in the UK: during his time at Cambridge, he founded Cambridge’s first ML research event for undergraduates, and launched a UK-wide network of communities for students working on passion projects outside the scope of their course.
*Euan will begin his studies at MIT in 2025/26.
Hugh Pearson
Hugh is working as a Clinical Education Fellow at The University of Edinburgh. He earned a first-class BSc in History and Philosophy of Medicine in 2018 and an MBBS in 2021 from UCL, winning the prestigious Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Surgical Skills Competition. At Harvard, Hugh will study a Master of Public Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He will pursue the health management field of study, drawn to its emphasis on developing practical skills for leading organisational change in healthcare.
As a junior doctor in Edinburgh, Hugh played a leading role in the organisation of Scotland’s first industrial action ballot for NHS doctors, negotiating a landmark £61.3 million investment on their behalf with the Scottish Government. Holding prominent positions within the British Medical Association (BMA) as Deputy Chair of the BMA Scottish Council and Deputy Chair of the BMA Scottish Junior Doctor Committee, Hugh is committed to revitalising the NHS as a global exemplar of taxpayer-funded public healthcare, emphasising the crucial role of politics in shaping healthcare systems.
Liam Plimmer
Liam is a PhD candidate and supervisor in English at the University of Cambridge. A first-generation student, he graduated with a double first with distinction in English from Downing College, Cambridge in 2020. He then completed an MSt in English Literature, 1900-Present as a Clarendon Scholar at Jesus College, Oxford, graduating with a distinction. In 2021, Liam returned to Cambridge to study for a PhD as a Benefactors’ Scholar at St. John’s College.
Liam’s research concerns the Künstlerroman, or “artist-novel”, a product of German romanticism. If the Bildungsroman is “one of academic criticism’s most overwhelmingly successful inventions” (Marc Redfield), then its long-lost relative the Künstlerroman still awaits invention. Accordingly, Liam’s project will overhaul our understanding of the modern novel by offering a new genealogy, and theory, of the form as an alternative to the current paradigm, which takes the Bildungsroman as its prototype. Examining works by Herman Melville, Henry James, Willa Cather, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and others, his PhD thesis shows how American authors use the Künstlerroman to ‘translate’ the German romantic spirit of critique into new contexts.
In 2024-25, Liam will pursue this research as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University.
Rania Ramli
Rania will undertake the Master in Public Administration in International Development at Harvard Kennedy School.
Rania began her career in UK politics working in Parliament before being elected as the National Chair of Labour Students, the student wing of The Labour Party. She then joined the Political Team at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
After graduating from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) with a BSc in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Rania moved to Ghana with the Tony Blair Institute. There, she worked as a Policy Associate, embedded in the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, focusing on private sector development. Currently, Rania is an Associate at British International Investment, the UK’s development finance institution, based in their London office.
At Harvard University, Rania aims to deepen her understanding of how government and business can collaborate for sustainable development. She is particularly interested in the role of financial institutions and private sector investment and looks forward to exploring these areas further.
Scholarships renewed for 24-25:
Gaurav Agarwal – Master of Science in Computational Biology & Quantitative Genetics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Tasila Banda – Master in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School (jointly pursuing an MBA at Harvard Business School)
Julia Pamilih – Master in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School