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MEET THE DIRECTORS

Who Are We?: Text
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DHRUVA BHAT

Director
Harvard College, Economics AB
Oxford University, DPhil candidate & MPhil International Development

Hi Everyone! My name is Dhruva, and I’m a director with Lumiere, a current DPhil Candidate and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. Before coming to Oxford, I studied at Harvard College with Stephen, where I concentrated in Economics. 

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My first introduction to research came through debate. I grew up in Chennai, India, and attended a local CBSE school where I studied commerce. My first exposure to research and studying abroad was by debating internationally for India. That led me to apply to Harvard and, after starting, led me to reach out to dozens of professors to help with their research. I work on Lumiere to make these world-class research opportunities available to kids like myself growing up.

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STEPHEN TURBAN

Director

Harvard College, Statistics AB

Harvard Business School, PhD student (dropped out to focus full-time on Lumiere)

Hello Lumiere Family! I’m Stephen, a director with Lumiere. Before starting a PhD at HBS, I worked for a few years at McKinsey & Company and with a new university in Vietnam called Fulbright University Vietnam. Before then, I studied with Dhruva at Harvard College. 

 

Research has been an important part of my life since I was a kid. My dad was a professor of psychology, so my dinner table discussions would be about why people act the way they do – and why we can study them. At Harvard, I was blessed with mentors at HBS, who made research fun, accessible, and exciting. I work on Lumiere to help share the opportunities I received with others.

Who Are We?: Team Members

OUR STORY

How did we come together to create Lumiere?

Who Are We?: Text
Who Are We?: About Me

Stephen and I met in a research program very similar to Lumiere. The program was a summer program for Harvard undergraduates where you work 1-1 with professors and graduate students on research. Stephen and I lived in the same dorm, ate lunch together, and even went on weekend trips around Boston. 
 
I don’t think we realized, at the time, how much that program would change both of our lives. For me, it would cement an excitement about doing research and asking questions that matter for the world. It’s ultimately why I would apply to Oxford and the Rhodes Scholarship. For Stephen, it kindled his desire to do research and come back to HBS one day. Perhaps most importantly, we also met each other and, in doing so, planted the seed for Lumiere. 
 
Lumiere’s mission is to provide world-class research opportunities for students around the world. That mission comes from the experience we both had together. It seeks to ensure that the opportunities we were given, received due to luck as much as anything, are not hidden in Ivory towers, but shared for the world’s best students.   
 
Our friendship is now more than half a decade old, and as it grows, so does Lumiere. We now have a community of hundreds of scholars and mentors in the program. Just like us, these mentors want to pay back the opportunities they received when they were younger. Just like us, the students seek out opportunities to prove themselves, as we did in that program. 
 
We hope you will join our story – as a mentor, scholar, team member, partner, supporter, or friend. It drives what we do, and we hope you will shape it with us. 

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