Chris Prufert

He/Him

I am gay and I am a physical chemist.//

I started my studies of chemistry and life sciences (double B.Sc.) and physical chemistry (M.Sc.) my Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Although there wasn’t a specific event, club or somethings like that for LGBT+ at our faculty, I realised quickly how many students were open and out in the department of Physics and Maths. Meaning that I felt comfortable within this community even though the public visibility wasn’t necessarily given in the “upper ranks”. However, looking back I think that I would helped me and also fellow students if those rolemodels would have been present at the department and factulty in order to imporve this acceptance even more. By the time that I moved do Berlin (and worked in Potsdam), I experienced how different the views can be in other countries. After attending meetings and conferences that focus on this issue I felt the strong need to change how gender and other aspects of diversity are percieved here. I became more and more active in order to show and encourage visibility of any kind to foster lived inclusivity each and every day.