Akshat Sharma

He/Him

I’m gay and I’m a postdoctoral fellow in immunology. //

There’s a line in “Almost Famous” that goes, “You don’t know what it’s like to truly love a piece of music so much that it hurts.” I think that sums up my relationship with immunology. When I was an undergrad at North Dakota State in Fargo, ND, applying to PhD programs, a well-meaning friend told me that there was no way I’d succeed in academia unless I “toned it down.” We all know what “it” is. I’m proud to say that after an MS in microbiology at North Dakota State, followed by a PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying human iNKT cells, I shall be embarking on a postdoctoral fellowship at UT Health in San Antonio, TX, to study the unique and underrated immunocyte composition of adipose tissue. And I refuse to “tone it down.”