H@H: Ep 47 – Cheick Diarra joins host, Ray Guan on this week’s episode of Here@Haas. Cheick, originally from Mali, has a deep background in biotech, including receiving his Doctorate of Pharmacy at UCSF, and currently works as a Senior Safety Scientist at Genentech. 

To all that know Cheick, he is always optimistic, encouraging and raises the spirits of anyone he interacts with. Self described as “annoyingly positive” Cheick believes that “How you frame things in your head can go a long way. For instance, I don’t see dead ends, I see detours. I don’t see barriers, I see stepping stones. [...] You have to embrace the low, the mid and the high, and things work out.”

Chieck, a scientist at heart, knows that the way we understand the world evolves in time and that “Truth as we know today may move based on your evidence tomorrow.” Always a challenger of the status quo, Cheick has lived out this principle, from finding new ways to approach math problems in 5th grade, to how he shapes and evolves his career today. 

Resources

• Professor Ross Levine
• Give and Take by Adam Grant