Stacey Hudson
Gardner Marshall was 12 when he realized that his fertile imagination had practical applications.
“I liked to come up with weird, crazy theories about things like extra dimensions in space and how the universe works,” he says. “My friend’s father told me there were jobs to study things like that.”
He could barely believe his good luck that realms he associated with science fiction were actually . . . well . . . just science. Marshall, who grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, went on to study physics at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
He also discovered a new passion as an undergraduate: math. “I’d always loved science, but until I got to college, I thought math was kind of boring,” he says. “I ended up loving it so much that I double-majored in science and math. It gets really fascinating the more you get into it. It becomes more about ideas and less about numbers.”
He went on to earn master’s and Ph.D. degrees in physics, then taught the subject at the College of Charleston for a decade. “I like interacting with people. I really love teaching,” he says. “But after a while, I realized I wanted to do hands-on things and see tangible results of my efforts. I wanted to make a real-world impact.”
He shadowed both physicians and dentists before deciding he’d prefer to be the latter. “Every dentist I shadowed told me how much they loved their careers,” he said. “My younger brother is also a dentist, and he thought it was a good fit for my personality,” Marshall says.
But arduous effort lay ahead. He earned dentistry prerequisites while maintaining his teaching position, then scoped out a dental school in a location that would ideally enable his wife, Jennifer, to maintain her career in higher education. When she learned that she could continue her job remotely, it was an easy call.
“I was so impressed with DCG during my interview,” he says. “Everybody was so friendly; they seemed like they really cared about the students. I went back to Charleston thinking, ‘Wow. This is a really great school.’”
He enrolled in fall 2022. “The course work is hard, but it’s in line with what I was expecting,” he says. “I feel well-prepared, especially with my academic background. I’m looking forward to moving to the clinical parts of the curriculum, but I enjoy the didactic work too. I’ve always been highly motivated, and I’m a lifelong learner.”
He plans a career in general dentistry, perhaps in the mountains, “but nothing is set in stone at this point,” he says, observing that as well-prepared as he tends to be, he enjoys finding himself on unexpected paths.
Says Marshall, “I’m open to whatever the future holds.
