Gautam Dantas ’00, PhD

Gautam Dantas ’00, PhD

Washington University School of Medicine
Associate Professor
Department of Pathology & Immunology
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Department of Molecular Microbiology
Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology

My liberal arts education taught me the exceptional value of training and experience in disciplines outside my core interests, both for my professional and personal development. I certainly enjoyed, and continue to benefit from, the excellent training I received for my biology and chemistry majors at Macalester. But experiences such as Concert Choir, and classes like Medical Anthropology and India and Rome: Rise of Religions have been just as important for defining who I am today.

Macalester taught me the incredible importance of seeking out and working with people who think differently from me. As a scientist, one of my greatest joys is to engage with someone who disagrees with me, because this often affords me an opportunity to think in a fundamentally new way. My Macalester experiences taught me how to not only value this engagement with opposing views, but to truly enjoy the process.

I would strongly encourage Mac students interested in science careers to complement their science training with coursework and experiences outside of their core interests, especially those that push their comfort zones. Perhaps the greatest value in such multidisciplinary experiences is learning to engage with peers who may appreciate the world in a truly different way than you do.