Nawaz was raised in east London and attended a school which, at the time, lacked a tradition of participation in higher education. He is a ‘first-generation university student’ and the only student in his school’s history to study Medicine at Oxford, where he completed his undergraduate and clinical medical studies at Balliol College. Whilst at Oxford he was appointed Junior Dean at St. Catherine’s College and served as a Special Constable in the Thames Valley Police Force. Before practicing as a doctor, Nawaz worked in international health policy, with a focus on HIV/AIDs and TB, at the World Health Organisation’s headquarters in Geneva. He returned to London to practice as an academic clinician. This joint post involved dividing time between front-line clinical practice in his local community which is one of the most deprived areas of the country, and strategic health issues, such as policy responses to health inequality. Most recently he has been working to develop national health policy and strategy as one of the National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellows. This is the flagship programme of the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management and is designed to create doctors with the knowledge and skills to lead tomorrow’s NHS. At Harvard, Nawaz looks forward to developing insights from the School of Public Health, the Kennedy School of Government and the Business School which he can use to fulfil his longer term aim of leading an NHS that ‘does more with less’ while minimising health inequality. Elsewhere, Nawaz is proud to serve on the board of governors at his old secondary school which is now an Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ Academy in east London.
2Cressida Arkwright 25
Harvard GSAS AM Regional Studies - REECA
Cressida is currently working in policy for Amnesty International in Brussels. Whilst completing her degree in Modern Languages at Cambridge, she interned with several NGO’s in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. In Moscow, Cressida conducted research into the homeless population, and contributed to plans for the city’s first day-care centre for homeless women with children. She became aware of the situation of female migrant workers from Central Asia, wherein gender inequality compounds issues of racism, exploitation and violence. As an intern with the BBC Russian Service, Cressida contributed to media coverage of the 2011 parliamentary elections and witnessed the squeeze of civil society, as freedoms of expression and assembly were restricted by legal and political developments. The Harvard degree will enable her to examine Eurasian politics and society; to explore how projects of nation- and state-building have shaped Central Asia; to examine the structural and macro changes that have encouraged migration and defined development. Further, she seeks to investigate modes and loci of constructing collective and individual identity, and the dynamics of Islamic and post-Soviet identity. Cressida is a fluent Russian and French speaker, with intermediate Ukrainian and welcomes the opportunity for formal study of Uzbek. At Harvard, Cressida seeks to develop her regional and cultural expertise and to prepare herself for a career in research and policy development in the field of human rights and humanitarian assistance.
Dr David Bargiela 27
Harvard GSAS Visiting Fellow
David currently works as an academic foundation doctor in Newcastle, combining clinical training with academic work in neurogenetics. He graduated with a Triple Distinction in medicine from Imperial College where he co-founded the Imperial College Neurological Society and pursued a number of self-instigated research projects, obtaining grants to present his findings at international conferences. A winner of numerous prizes and awards including the Association of Clinical Pathologists Student Research Award in 2011, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Student Prize in 2012 and an Association of Clinical Pathologists’ Journalism Prize in 2013, the latter for a report as a Wellcome Trust Elective Student working on the genetics of HIV neuropathy at Johns Hopkins University. In conjunction with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, he has designed a mobile app that helps healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa diagnose and treat HIV neuropathy, the most common neurological complication of HIV infection. David is a keen long-distance runner, often in support of his particular interest in Multiple Sclerosis. He will spend his year at Harvard in a group which combines genetic and brain imaging data to answer questions in MS. On his return, David will continue academic clinical training with the long-term aim of leading his own research group into MS alongside his work as a consultant neurologist.
4Barney Gilbert 22
Harvard GSAS Special Student
Barney is currently part-way through his training as a medical doctor. He plans to use the breadth of the special student option to further his interests in three key aspects of health care: public policy; clinical innovation; and health systems management. In addition, he is excited to join a world-leading interfaculty research initiative exploring value-based delivery in health care. Barney became convinced of the power of effective public health measures to improve people’s quality of life when, as a hospital porter, he was selected to represent his local hospital’s “In the Community” project. Since then, he has worked at the Department of Health (UK), where he helped to write the Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report, and has also worked with a consultancy firm to deliver an integrative care package to an NHS Foundation Trust. As an innovator, Barney is involved in several projects that use low-cost technology to improve patient outcomes. He looks forward to collaborating on similar projects with students at the Harvard Business School. Beyond health care, his interests include debating, politics and cricket.
5Dr Justin Healy 26
Harvard School of Public Health MPH
While studying medicine at the University of Manchester, Justin became particularly interested in the barriers to healthcare experienced by marginalised communities. He worked with asylum seeker charities, student advocacy groups and co-ordinated a national student conference on global health. His interest in conflict and health has taken him to Sri Lanka and Palestine as well as inspiring a Masters degree in healthcare ethics and law where he looked at the application of human rights and distributive justice in the provision of healthcare. A clinical interest in infectious diseases has seen him produce an interactive iTextbook on the subject that has been downloaded across four continents, and he has recently completed a diploma in tropical medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. While at Harvard Justin hopes to study in more depth the ethical framework of humanitarian medicine as well as explore the political and economic considerations of global health policy.
6George Kynaston 25
Harvard Kennedy School non-degree
George aims to combat inequality through a career in public leadership. After studying English at Oxford, he spent two years teaching in Birmingham through Teach First and recently completed an MA in Educational Leadership. George left the classroom to become a volunteer organiser on the Obama 2012 campaign, before returning to the UK to work in Teach First’s recruitment team. Whilst remaining committed to educational opportunity as a crucial pathway to a fairer society - having co-founded Limited Resource Teacher Training, which ran training for over 1000 local teachers in developing countries in 2013 - George aims to use his time at the Kennedy School to gain a fuller understanding of the root causes of inequality. He will cross-register with the Ed School for courses on urban and international education, and hopes to develop his skills regarding effective policy-making and delivery as well as the mobilisation of others. Once generously described by a student newspaper as having “twinkling feet”, he will also play soccer.
7Dr Edward Maile 26
Harvard School of Public Health MPH
Edward studied Medicine at the University of Manchester where he also completed a Genetics BSc (Hons), graduating top of the year and receiving a Faculty of Life Sciences Outstanding Achievement Award. He spent his elective implementing a global health research project in Nepal and is now an Academic Foundation Doctor at the University of Oxford, where he is working on research projects in health policy and management and has won grant-funding from Cancer Research UK and Health Education England. Edward founded the award-winning non-profit Move Eat Treat, which trains healthcare professionals to deliver preventative lifestyle advice and campaigns for curriculum change. He also developed the 2023 Challenge, an innovation competition which funds junior doctors’ ideas to improve patient care. In the face of rising costs, chronic disease and an ageing population, Edward’s long-term goal is to lead the implementation of novel models of healthcare and to help rebalance UK health policy in favour of prevention. He welcomes the opportunity to study in the dynamic environment of America and in particular at the School of Public Health. Outside of healthcare, Edward is a keen triathlete and enjoys outdoor pursuits.
8Joseph Smith 23
Advanced Studies Program, EECS, MIT
Joe attended a mixed comprehensive in an area of relatively low educational attainment and high unemployment. Two of his 4 A-levels were self-taught. This summer, he will complete a MEng in Electronic Engineering with Nanotechnology at UCL. His bachelor thesis researched two novel types of biodegradable nanowires for use in neuroregenerative medicine and took him to the final 3 of the SET Student of the Year awards in 2013 as well as a poster prize at the Introduction to Quantum Systems and Devices summer school at Aalto University in Helsinki. A 12 week internship at CERN also stimulated cross-disciplinary conversations amongst an international cohort and Joe looks forward to the interdisciplinary nature of study at MIT. He will be developing his research into quantum information and gaining the scientific background he currently lacks by taking modules in Course Q under the iQuISE umbrella. He anticipates a doctorate in quantum computation and enjoys the fact that modern EECS is a discipline with fluid boundaries. It has also enabled him to encourage budding engineers using Lego at a north London primary school.
