Maheetha Bharadwaj ’16 has been selected as one of 35 American Gates Scholars in the 2016 cohort. The scholarship, established by Bill and Melinda Gates in 2000, rewards outstanding students with the opportunity to pursue a postgraduate degree in any subject at the University of Cambridge. The scholarship seeks students who have demonstrated intellectual ability, leadership and commitment to improving the lives of others.

Bharadwaj is currently completing a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s in biomedical informatics. She has conducted research in the field at both the Stanford School of Medicine and the McDonnell Genome Institute at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. She has also co-authored a research paper that appeared in the prestigious journal “Cell” in April 2015.

At Stanford, Bharadwaj is a leader at the Mural Music and Arts Project, a local nonprofit seeking to educate and motivate youth. She also volunteers as a health educator at the Stanford School of Medicine’s Arbor Free Clinic. In 2013, she founded Stanford Music and Medicine, which recruits Stanford musicians to perform at assisted living centers in Palo Alto.

As a Gates Scholar, Bharadwaj plans to pursue a master’s degree in genomic medicine, focusing on how genomics can be used for personalized patient care.

Contact Zachary Brown at zbrown ‘at’ stanford.edu.