School Notes: Yale College
May/June 2022

Yale alumna and senior win Gates Cambridge Scholarships

Yale alumna Maya Juman ’20 and senior Jennifer Miao ’22 are among 23 US citizens who have been selected to be Gates Cambridge Scholars at the University of Cambridge.

Miao is majoring in molecular biophysics and biochemistry and has conducted research on membrane protein insertion at the endoplasmic reticulum. Her interest in structural biology began in high school, where she studied peptide segments that form the core of infectious prion fibrils. She will pursue a PhD in biological science at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge.

Juman majored in ecology and evolutionary biology. After graduating in 2020, she joined the Philadelphia Department of Public Health as a COVID-19 response coordinator. This year, she is studying deforestation in Malaysia with the support of a Fulbright Fellowship. At Cambridge, she will pursue a PhD in biology in the Department of Veterinary Medicine.

Three selected as Churchill Scholars

Two Yale seniors—Megan He and Sarah Zhao—and alumnus James Diao ’18 are among the 18 recipients of Churchill Scholarships for the 2022–23 academic year. The scholarships support one year of master’s study at Churchill College in the University of Cambridge. Megan He and Diao were also named Kanders Churchill Scholars, for Cambridge’s master’s program in public health policy.

Megan He is majoring in environmental engineering and global affairs. At Cambridge, she will study science policy as it relates to air pollution, climate, and energy. After Cambridge, she plans to pursue a PhD in environmental engineering. 

Sarah Zhao is pursuing a joint BS/MA in statistics and data science, along with a second major in mathematics. She will pursue an MPhil degree at Cambridge, in advanced computer science with a focus on machine learning.

James Diao graduated magna cum laude from Yale, majoring in statistics and data science and molecular biophysics and biochemistry. He is now a third-year medical student at Harvard Medical School and MIT. He will pursue a master’s degree in public policy at Cambridge University.