2012 batch BS-MS student of IISER Pune, Yaikhomba Mutum, has won the prestigious Gates Scholarship to study at St. John's College in Cambridge University, UK
| The Gates Cambridge scholarship was instituted in the year 2000 through a US$ 210 million donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the University of Cambridge, and aims to build a global network of future leaders. The scholarships are awarded to outstanding non-UK applicants to pursue full-time post graduate degrees in any discipline at University of Cambridge, UK. The selection is made on the basis of four criteria - academic excellence, leadership potential, social commitment towards improving lives of others, and academic fit of the candidate for Cambridge University. |
 |
Yaikhomba, originally from Imphal, Manipur, is one of three Indians among the 90 Gates Cambridge scholars selected every year. Nearly 6,000 candidates from around the world had applied for this scholarship. He would be joining the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit at Cambridge to pursue his PhD and will be affiliated to St. John's College. His project is to understand the mechanisms of active proton transport in Complex I, an enzyme involved in making energy rich ATP molecules, whose dysfunction causes neuromuscular diseases. See Yaikhomba's profile on the Gates Cambridge portal for more details.
Arya Thampi, Arjun Vijeta and Rohit Chikkaraddy are three of the previous IISER Pune students to have won scholarships to study at Cambridge.
Congratulations and our best wishes to Yaikhomba for his career.
The news was also covered by the press as follows:
1. Hindustan Times, April 12, 2017
