Kelsey Collier

They/Them

I am trans and ace and I am a physicist (working as a structural biologist). //

I’m doing a postdoc in a structural biology lab using dynamic nuclear polarization and fast-spinning solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance to study large proteins. My background is in instrumentation development for NMR. I’m also the person who yells at their labmates about safety equipment. Wear your goggles! I feel bad for slightly decreasing the number of women in physics, but working in a building with glass doors is hard when you’re trying to avoid your reflection. I’m out by necessity, since I work in a small field and transitioned after I’d started attending conferences, but I also think visibility is important and powerful. I have a lot of opinions about gender and STEM (and academia). The support and mentorship I’ve gotten from within the queer community has been incredibly important to me during the stresses of life and academia; I want more visibility and less stress for queer people (and women, and POC, and disabled people, and every other minority group) in STEM.