Gautam is a Group Leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), based in the Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit of its Heidelberg headquarters. His research group investigates the evolution and diversity of mitosis and nuclear remodelling across eukaryotes using a combination of comparative cell biology, experimental evolution and genomics.

Gautam started his group at EMBL in early 2021, after a postdoc in London working on the evolution of cell division with Buzz Baum. Gautam holds a PhD in systems biology from Stanford University and a research MSc. from the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India. Gautam is an ERC Investigator (2023-2028), a FEBS Excellence Fellow (2024-2026) and a previous holder of a Marie-Sklodowska Curie postdoctoral fellowship (2017-2018) and a Stanford Graduate Fellowship in Science and Engineering (2009-2012).