Nicolas Bambach
He/Him
I am bi and I am a biometeorologist.//
I am a bisexual man happily married to a man. I struggled for years with my sexual orientation, and growing-up in a latino conservative environment made things difficult at times. I believe the hardest part was not wanting to be known as the gay person in the room. I wanted others to recognize me for who I was, and not only by a sexual orientation I needed time to explore and understand myself first. I fully came out on my early 30s while doing my PhD in USA. I felt safe and respected, and that was essential in my process. After graduating, I went back to my home country (Chile) and started an academic position in a Catholic institution. I got back into the closet and the fear of not being accepted impacted my personal and professional development. A few months ago, I quit that job and started a position as a Postdoctoral Scientist at UC Davis. Throughout this path, I have understood how essential is to make visible the LGBTQ community in STEM, and have also decided to make this a key component of my contribution as a young scientist.