What’s wrong with me? Sexism, homophobia and racism in physics
 (Vortrag in englischer Sprache)

In the organizer's words:

What's wrong with me? Sexism, homophobia and racism in physics / Lecture in English with Dr. Pauline Gagnon
Why are sexism, homophobia and racism still so prevalent in physics? Pauline Gagnon draws on her own experiences to show that the private sphere is indeed political. At CERN, the largest physics laboratory in the world, scientists from 112 nations work, but still around 80% of those in leadership positions are white and male. Pauline Gagnon examines why people from so many different groups have been and continue to be excluded from physics in the past and proposes a number of easily implementable measures that could significantly improve diversity in physics. Gagnon is convinced that these measures would benefit all scientists, regardless of their gender, background, sexual orientation or physical abilities. After all, it has been proven that diversity benefits science because it increases the potential for creativity, which plays a key role in scientific research.

Dr. Pauline Gagnon, born in Canada in 1955, is a particle physicist at Indiana University and has been a researcher in the ATLAS team at CERN since 2000. She taught physics at Cégep de Jonquière and Chicoutimi in Québec. In 2012, she was involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson and searched for dark matter as part of the ATLAS experiment. From 2011 to 2014, she was a member of the CERN communications group and wrote numerous blogs explaining the research carried out there in an easily understandable way. Explaining particle physics to the media and interested parties in simple terms has since become her trademark. In 2014, she wrote a popular science book entitled: Was kommt nach dem Higgs-Boson? Particle physics, the Large Hadron Collider and CERN made understandable.

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What's wrong with me - sexism, homophobia and racism in physics
Why are sexism, homophobia and racism still so widespread in physics? Pauline Gagnon draws on her own experiences to show that the private sphere is indeed political. At CERN, the largest physics laboratory in the world, scientists from 112 nations work, but still about 80% of those in leadership positions are white and male. Pauline Gagnon examines why people from so many different groups have been and continue to be excluded from physics in the past and proposes a number of easily implementable measures that could significantly improve diversity in physics. Gagnon is convinced that these measures would benefit all scientists, regardless of their gender, background, sexual orientation or physical abilities. After all, it has been proven that diversity benefits science because it increases the potential for creativity, which plays a key role in scientific research.

Dr. Pauline Gagnon, born in Canada in 1955, is a particle physicist at Indiana University and has been a researcher on the ATLAS team at CERN since 2000. She taught physics at the Cégep de Jonquière and Chicoutimi in Québec. In 2012, she was involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson and searched for dark matter as part of the ATLAS experiment. From 2011 to 2014, she was a member of the CERN communications group and wrote numerous blogs explaining the research carried out there in an easily understandable way. Explaining particle physics to the media and interested parties in simple terms has since become her trademark. In 2014, she wrote a popular science book entitled "What comes after the Higgs boson?": Particle physics, the Large Hadron Collider and CERN made understandable.

Moderation: Katrin Wiesemann
Moderation LiveChat and online discussion: Stefan Soehnle
Livestream: Ricarda Hinz

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Humanist Salon: Since 2013, the DA! has regularly organized the Humanist Salon on the first Wednesday of the month. This is where urban society discusses philosophical, scientific and ethical issues. 50 to 100 visitors regularly gather in the Salon des Amateurs (bar in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf) and online, as the salons have generally been broadcast live online since 2022. Questions submitted online by the audience are also integrated into the discussion following the lecture.

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