New Parasol Foundation scholars take up their places at Cambridge University

Congratulations to the four talented women who have been awarded The Parasol Foundation Scholarships to study master’s degrees in astronomy and related disciplines and are now officially members of all women Murray Edwards College and Cambridge University.

This is the second year the fully funded scholarship programme has been available to home fee paying students. In such a short time it has made a dramatic difference to women’s opportunities to pursue their studies at a higher level. Applications for the coveted award have more than doubled from 30 in the first year to 72 this year. Beyond the successful recipients of the award, the very existence of the programme plays an important role in nurturing women’s aspirations. First, by offering a way to study at Cambridge. Second, to encourage them to choose to study astronomy and related disciplines which historically have had fewer women students and third to stay in academia.

As one of the inaugural Scholars, Maria Semerkina, commented, ‘the award had helped me in fulfilling my lifelong ambition of pursuing learning as a career path’.

Parasol Foundation Scholar Helena Nicolaides is studying the newly introduced Mphil in Planetary science and Life in the universe which is proving to be a popular option. She was awarded a BA in philosophy and maths at the University of Southampton and graduated in July 2025. She is interested in the science of space and the ethical questions that lie at its core.

She is joined on the course by Alicia Ericsson who is a recent graduate of the University of York where she completed her BSc in Biology. Her interests lie in the adaptability of life in extreme environments. For her undergraduate dissertation she probed the habitability of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

Talin Keoshgerian has an MPhys in Physics with Astronomy from the University of Southampton which is an integrated masters/extended undergraduate programme. She is taking an Mphil in Astronomy where she will be working with Professor Chris Tout on research into progenitors of type 1a supernovae that are carbon-oxygen white dwarfs accreting helium-rich material.

Gemma Collins completes the quartet. She too has an MPhys in Physics with Astronomy but from the University of St Andrews. For her Mphil in Astronomy she will be working with Professor Vasily Belokurov to develop and apply a Bayesian hierarchical model to infer intrinsic 3D galaxy shapes from observed 2D axis ratios. The model will be applied to the Euclid early-release data set targeting thousands of galaxies.

While the Scholars are at Murray Edwards College they will be able to draw current inspiration and deepen their interest in the cosmos from Professor Hiranya Peiris. She was appointed as Cambridge University’s first female 1905 Chair of Astrophysics and is a Fellow and former student at the College. The College boasts a distinguished heritage in physics as renowned physicist Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell also studied at Murray Edwards.

The future looks very bright for this talented foursome.