Four Harvard Affiliates Named 2026 Gates Cambridge Scholars | News

thecrimson.com · Feb 23, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Three Harvard College students and one alumna were awarded the 2026 Gates Cambridge Scholarship and will pursue fully funded postgraduate degrees at the University of Cambridge next year, the Gates Cambridge Trust announced earlier this month.Sharmila M.N. Dey ’25, Larom Segev ’26, Lea Wang ’26, and Mukta Dharmapurikar ’26 were among 23 recipients from the United States selected for the prestigious scholarship and will begin master’s or doctoral programs in the United Kingdom in the fall.Dey, who studied Earth and Planetary Sciences at the College, plans to pursue a Ph.D. in plant sciences at Christ’s College, where she will examine how logging and climate change affect carbon storage in tropical ecosystems. She currently works in Harvard Professor Elsie M. Sunderland’s lab, researching environmental pollutants.In her doctoral work, Dey also hopes to explore how scientists can better communicate the effects of climate change — a focus area she said was shaped by courses taught by Carrie F. Jenks, director of Harvard Law School’s Energy and Environment Program, and History professor Emma Rothschild.After taking the classes, Dey said she became focused on finding ways to communicate climate science that “get past that political divide and really just tell people the truth about what the threats are to their public health.”Dharmapurikar, an Environmental Science and Engineering and Economics concentrator, said she hopes to pursue “cross-disciplinary solutions” that bridge gaps between scientists, policymakers, and business owners. At Cambridge, she will pursue a Master of Philosophy in Environmental Policy at Jesus College.“I also interacted with a really wide range of people with really varying political beliefs — ranging from people who really strongly wanted to take action on climate change to people who were a little bit skeptical of its existence,” Dharmapurikar said.Wang, an Applied Mathematics and Social Studies concentrator, said she plans to build on her interest in politics of climate change responsibility while pursuing a Master of Philosophy in History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine.Her path to Cambridge, Wang said, was unconventional. Before settling on her current concentration, she explored five different fields of study, including Molecular and Cellular Biology, Government, and Sociology.“It really helped me grow as a person to have an open mind about what I was interested in and to follow my wins,” Wang said.At Cambridge, Wang said she hopes to identify “the most promising ways” to redistribute resources so that communities most affected by climate change can “adequately adapt to the threats that climate change poses to their livelihoods.”Segev, an Astrophysics and Applied Physics concentrator, plans to take her studies beyond Earth. She will pursue a Ph.D in Physics and work at the Cavendish Laboratory, where her research will focus on characterizing the Dark Ages — an early period in the universe’s development.“Curiosity is the primary motivating factor for almost everyone who attends Cambridge. It’s what they really try and cultivate,” Segev said. “It’s also been a huge part of what’s motivated me throughout my journey, and it’s the ultimate thing I want to do with my life.”The Gates Cambridge Scholarship was established in 2000 after Bill and Melinda Gates donated $210 million to the University of Cambridge. The program supports postgraduate study for nearly 80 students worldwide each year.Dey said her decision to apply for the Gates Scholarship was influenced in part by uncertainty surrounding the stability of funding for U.S.-based graduate programs as a result of the Trump administration’s cuts to research funding.Last fall, Harvard announced sweeping cuts to Ph.D. admissions across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, cutting seats by 50 percent in the Sciences Division and nearly 60 percent in the Arts and Humanities.“Even talking to people at Harvard about what the graduate admissions here were going to look like, it made me really want to think about places I could apply abroad, just to have some options outside of places in the U.S.,” Dey said.—Staff writer Kaylee Razo can be reached at [email protected].—Staff writer Mark C.Z. Snekvik can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at marksnek.62. Follow him on X at @markcsnekvik.