Arun Sethuraman, a professor of population genetics and bioinformatics at San Diego State University, loves to engage his students in research. “We develop and apply new open source tools to use genomic data to understand genetic ancestry, human diseases, plant breeding, and animal conservation,” he says.
Teaching mainly Hispanic and Asian Pacific Islander students, “I am proud to inspire my students who look like me to achieve new heights in STEM careers,” notes Sethuraman, a gay Indian American/Desi. In the past year, he has published his 50th manuscript and been elected to the Genetics Society of America's board of directors. He has been frustrated, however, by “the continued attack on science funding, public disbelief in scientific reason, and gross underrepresentation of us minorities in the sciences” — which he hopes to rectify.
He is writing a book with the working title Genetics of Minorities, which, with an accompanying podcast, will focus on “de-jargonizing and humanizing the genetics of our minorities.” He adds, “To that brown gay person in an unnoticed corner of the world — keep doing your science!”
