Penn 2025 graduate awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship

The University of Pennsylvania’s Rameen Iftikhar, who completed a master’s degree in international education development from the Graduate School of Education in January, has been awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue a Ph.D. in education at the University of Cambridge in England.

Iftikhar, from Pakistan, is one of 95 new Gates Cambridge Scholars selected worldwide. The scholarship covers the full cost of studying at Cambridge for as long as four years, as well as additional discretionary funding.

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Drawing from her background in economics, politics, and international development, Iftikhar says, her doctoral research explores the potential of communities to expand girls’ education and life paths. Her work investigates if the knowledge, skills, and resources that young girls gain from education translate into capabilities that allow them to pursue alternative life paths and envisions communities as key levers of change in these relationships.

An education and gender specialist, Iftikhar was awarded a 2023 Fulbright Master’s Scholarship to pursue her degree at Penn. Since completing her GSE degree in January she has been an intern with UNESCO on education for inclusion and gender equality. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Lahore University of Management Science in Pakistan in 2022.

At Penn, Iftikhar received the President Gutmann Leadership Award in 2024 recognizing original research contributions and funding for conference travel in Europe. She was a graduate research assistant for the course Teaching Beyond September 11 and a course assistant for Education in Developing Countries, both taught by GSE’s Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher.

Iftikhar has pioneered a multimodal approach to gender diversity, violence, and governance in South Asia as the lead investigator of a grant funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She has been an assistant policy consultant for The Asia Foundation, where she developed a systems reform framework for foundational literacy and numeracy for governments in Southeast Asia with GSE Senior Fellow Alec Ian Gershberg. She co-founded Aghaaz, a community-based organization for at-risk youth in Pakistan, where she designed and implemented programs for vulnerable K-12 students.

Iftikhar is Penn’s 35th Gates Cambridge Scholar since the program’s first class in 2001. Founded in 2000 with a donation to Cambridge by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the scholarship’s mission is “to build a global network of future leaders committed to improving the lives of others.” More information about the Gates Cambridge Scholarship is available from Penn’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.