Mario Toubes-Rodrigo

He/Him

I’m gay and I’m a geomicrobiologist. //

I am a doctor in subglacial microbiology fascinated by life on the extreme—temperatures, acidity, radioactivity, you name it. How microorganisms are able to not only survive, but thrive in these conditions has always caught my attention. The implications of this kind of research are massive: how life was originated, possibility of life in other planets, more. Recently there has been research that shows that LGTBQ academics in STEM drop more than our straight colleagues, especially due to the lack of referents in our fields. My reason to submit this story is to show that we queer academics exist, and that as a LGTBQ community we are extremophiles too, and it does not matter what the adversity is, we will survive.