Experiencing city life in London

After studying for my undergraduate degree in my home country of Colombia, I came to Europe through Erasmus Mundus to study for a Master’s in Energy Storage and Conversion. Thanks to that, I lived in France, Poland, Slovenia, and Spain. I was granted a PhD Fellowship in the north of Spain and, afterwards, I moved to Sweden as a postdoctoral researcher.

After living in Europe for seven years, I really wanted to come to the UK because, for me, it was an unexplored territory where I could improve my English language skills. I wanted to live in London to experience a large city again. I approached Professor Milo Shaffer and joined Imperial in August 2019 as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow.

My research focuses on the development of organic materials to be used in structural batteries, and I’ve been collaborating with researchers in Spain doing complementary research. A big part of our work is about developing batteries that can be used in automobiles and airplanes, in a more efficient way, to help the transition from petrol to electric, which is more environmentally friendly.  

Confronting a lack of awareness about Colombia

I was born in Bucaramanga, the fifth largest city in Colombia, and raised by my mum, grandma, and lots of aunts and uncles. I am Latina and all my family are from Colombia – my cousin and I were the first in the family to live outside of our home country. 

To me, Colombia means happiness. There’s such amazing food, and on Sundays, we usually have a family gathering with our grandma. We don’t do this that often now because we don’t all live together, but whenever I go back home there is always a time where around 30 of us will gather and eat, drink and laugh.  

Colombians also love dancing – especially Cuban and Colombian salsa! As a nation, we’re really successful in international dancing competitions. Colombia is also a very religious country. During Christmas, there is an event called novena, where for nine days before the 24th you pray each night. Each of those nine nights is hosted by a different house/family and includes food and drinks.

I feel like I can be open about being Colombian. It doesn’t happen that often, but sometimes people are racist, especially because Colombia has been quite renowned for drugs. People do not realise that the drug-lord era deeply hurt our people and belongs to our past. Now we are just a nation trying to heal and grow.  

People also generally don’t know much about Colombia and barely know it’s in South America – I remember once someone thought it was a Baltic country! While there is recognition of minority groups, usually it focuses on Black and Asian people – for example, when I am filling in forms, there is no Latino option. It would be great to find other Latino people at Imperial to show the large and diverse community we are and to share our experiences.  

Feeling accepted as a gay woman

Science and Imperial are multicultural – my research group is very diverse. We’re accepting, and I feel accepted too. I am very lucky that in my research group I don’t feel like I need to hide; I hadn’t come out when I was in Colombia – it's too strict and traditionalist there.  

So, when I started my Master’s I was careful who I told I was gay, but one of my male classmates openly talked about his boyfriend, and this was really nice to hear and see. Since then, every place I arrive, I say “I’m gay” so I can talk openly about my girlfriend and my personal life. I’m part of Imperial 600 (the College’s LGBTQ+ network) and have attended some of their talks – it's refreshing to see how open and accepting things are at Imperial.