Meet the Monika Tesarova Fund Bursary recipient

Timothy Ng’Ang’A

Timothy is studying for a DPhil in Education and received the Monika Tesarova Fund Bursary in Trinity Term 2020.

On receiving the award, Timothy commented: “I am thankful for the Monika Tesarova Fund Bursary which enabled me to further invest in my transferrable skills training by availing funds to support two online courses offered by the University of Michigan: Applied Text Mining and Social Network Analysis, while studying at Oxford. As a DPhil student, I was keen to undertake skills training in computational social statistics using Python programming, which I believe would enhance my skills and experience of applied machine learning, and complement my DPhil studies in Learning and New Technologies, here at Oxford. However, given that these short courses were not necessarily directly linked to any deliverable for my DPhil research, I was precluded from typical funding opportunities. As a scholarship student, and due to visa-extension related financial constraints, with no other doors open to me, the Monika Tesarova Fund Bursary has afforded me the opportunity to finance my participation in these self-paced online courses in April and May, unhindered by COVID-19. I am grateful for the immeasurable support the fund provided me with.”