The Track - E035 - Sommer Gentry

The Track with Ryan Swift

My guest this month is dancer, competitor, and U.S. Naval Academy professor of mathematics, Sommer Gentry. Sommer has won competitions at countless events, including Boston Tea Party, the Virginia State Open, and Swingin’ New England, and became a cornerstone of the Baltimore swing community as co-founder of Charm City Swing. Off the dance floor, her research with her husband Dorry Segev in organ transplant optimization has landed her profiles in Science and TIME magazines.

Sommer and I sat down a year ago at Lindy Focus and talked about country two-stepping, the joy she finds in learning as many dances as possible, her experiences as a competitor and social dancer, and how she prefers learning by doing — in both dance and math.

We also discussed her love of pop music, what it’s like both dancing and researching with her husband, performing superhuman feats of mathematics on television, and how exactly one can embody Zeno’s Paradox on the dance floor.