Princeton University senior Sydnae Taylor has been awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. The awards give outstanding students from outside the United Kingdom the opportunity to pursue postgraduate study at the University of Cambridge. The program was established in 2000 by a donation to Cambridge from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to build a global network of future leaders committed to improving the lives of others.
Sydnae Taylor '23
Taylor is among 77 U.S. and international winners of the scholarship.
Taylor is from Kingston, Jamaica. She plans to pursue an MPhil in health, medicine and society at Cambridge. She then intends to obtain her Ph.D. in a public health-related field and pursue a career in global health in developing countries.
“I am especially galvanized to dedicate my efforts towards collaborating with leaders in the Ministry of Health in Jamaica to support areas of maternal and child health as well as healthcare system building,” Taylor wrote in her personal statement for the award.
For her senior thesis, Taylor, a concentrator in medical anthropology who is also pursuing a certificate in global health and policy, is conducting a cross-cultural study about obstetrics in developing countries. As part of her research, she shadowed gynecologists, pediatricians and general practitioners in primary-care clinics and specialized hospitals in La Paz and Tarija, Bolivia, for eight weeks, as part of the International Internship Program (IIP), and was funded by both IIP and Princeton’s Global Health Scholars Program.
“Sydnae Taylor stands out as one of the top undergraduate students I have worked with,” said Agustín Fuentes, professor of anthropology, noting her “remarkable talent for research and analyses.” He added: “She is also a professional and collegial colleague, who understands the complexity, nuance and rigor required in truly collaborative projects.”
At Princeton, Taylor serves as a student representative in the Global Health Program and is a former research fellow for the Art Hx: Visual and Medical Legacies of British Colonialism Project, working with a five-member digital humanities team. She is also a member of student advisory boards with the Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES) and the Department of Music.
In summer 2021, she served as an intern (remote) with Bolivia’s Child Family Health International through the International Internship Program. Her global healthcare experience also includes serving as a consultant for one year (remote) with Fòs Feminista in Panama.
She is a member of Butler College, where she is an RCA. Taylor has also served as the vice president of logistics for the Africa Summit at Princeton, and co-led the team that started the New Venture Competition at the summit — an opportunity for early-stage tech entrepreneurs based in Africa to learn, network and compete for capital needed to launch their businesses.
