Gregg Gonsalves took a wild, meandering path to the Ivory Tower. His route to becoming a professor at Yale started in street protests and spanned the globe.
On Thursday he was honored with a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.
Gonsalves says he was shocked to learn that he’s getting this award. “I had no idea that anybody was scrutinizing what I’ve been up to lately,” the 54-year-old says with a laugh.
This national honor for creativity may redeem him with his parents, who were disappointed when he dropped out of college in the mid-1980s and drifted around waiting tables.
“That was about the time I was coming out of the closet and realizing I was gay,” says Gonsalves, who grew up in a conservative family of Portuguese and Italian Catholics.
“Then I met somebody who was HIV positive and that changed my life. There were no treatments for the disease then, and it was terribly scary to think about what the future was for both of us.”