Biology major Sonali Kaluri is a STEM expert. Spanish major Sonali Kaluri is a language and culture expert. 

Put the two together and you have a sharply educated researcher with a passion for healthcare. Kaluri is headed to Barcelona after graduation this Spring as a Fulbright Scholar to study the health of migrant workers under the digital platform economy. She plans to later embark on a career in medicine. 

It’s something she says she couldn’t have done without her experiences at the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. 

“You need to have a deep understanding of people and the systems that surround us to be able to effectively and ethically help people as a physician,” Kaluri said. 

Kaluri’s Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies degree from the School of Modern Languages helped shape that understanding, including through classes studying Spanish literature. 

“Literature is such an important window into the lives of people different from you,” Kaluri said. “Studying another language’s great works is an excellent way to understand the experiences of different people and build that empathy, which translates to real life for me in being able to better connect with the people I meet.” 

Kaluri, who was fluent in her parents’ languages of Telugu and Kannada before arriving at Georgia Tech, had always wanted to combine language training with her work in healthcare. 

“Early in high school and college, I would shadow doctors, and if they had a patient that couldn’t speak English, I’d be able to follow along with the conversation even without an interpreter using my knowledge from high school Spanish classes,” Kaluri said. “I figured that one day as a doctor, it would be cool to be able to talk directly to a larger number of patients without needing an interpreter and to be able to build greater rapport with patients. That was the spark for why I wanted to pursue more rigorous study of Spanish.” 

Her interest in medicine derives from seeing how cultural norms around gender and caregiving can shape and even sideline women’s own healthcare needs.   

“I realized that was a big part of why I wanted to pursue medicine — to advocate for people on a deeper level, to try to bridge these gaps that I've noticed in research, in the clinic, et cetera,” Kaluri said. 

Kelly Comfort, one of Kaluri’s Spanish professors, said Kaluri’s success shows what’s possible with a combined STEM and liberal arts education. 

“Sonali is the kind of student who proves that the humanities are not separate from science and medicine — they strengthen them. Her ability to think critically about culture, identity, and social systems through her ALIS major has shaped her into a more thoughtful future healthcare professional,” Comfort said. 

“She is not only highly skilled in pre-health and pre-medicine fields, but she is also multilingual, interculturally competent, empathetic, reflective, and prepared to improve the human condition across cultures, languages, and borders,” Comfort said.