Lindsay D’Amato took a circuitous route from Missouri to the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, via graduate school in California, a two-year Peace Corps stint in Panama — and a detour for brain surgery.⠀ ⠀ She grew up in St. Louis nurturing a budding interest in the sciences and went on to study biological engineering at mizzou.⠀ ⠀ After graduation, she joined a civil engineering master’s degree program that combined a year of study at ucdavis, with two years in the field doing hands-on water and sanitation work. After her year in California, D’Amato left for rural Panama, where she raised money and installed a solar-powered electric water pump. She later coordinated with the Colorado nonprofit Bridges to Prosperity to put in a bridge so people heading to work and school could cross a nearby river that regularly swells in the rain.⠀ ⠀ At Harvard, while doing an externship at Massachusetts General Hospital, that D’Amato noticed problems with the vision in one eye. She went for an MRI a...