Julian Walfridsson - new Equal opportunity coordinator

Since autumn 2013, Julian Walfridsson, group leader at HERM, is the new Gender equality and diversity Coordinator at Department of Medicine, Huddinge. " I'm very glad that I got the trust of the department for this task," he says.

What does it mean for you to work with equal treatment?

-Serving as the representative for equal treatments at Department of Medicine, Huddinge means to me that I have a very responsible task, where I get the opportunity to be involved and contribute to a permissive environment and to work against discrimination and harassment. I am very glad that I got the trust of the department for this task.

What does an equal treatment representative work with?

-As equality representative I should along with our Head of Department and Head of administration work for equal rights for staff and students. This means that I will work against any discrimination with regard to gender, gender identity or expression, ethnicity, sexual orientation and age.

Tell us about you.

-I have a Swedish mother, a father from Jamaica and I grew up in Skellefteå. 19 years old I got tired of the dark winters (but lacks the cool summers) and moved to Stockholm. I worked as an assistant nurse for a few years before I decided to study molecular biology at the University of Stockholm. I did my PhD studies with Karl Ekwall, KI, and my postdoc in Copenhagen.

-After doing a second postdoc at Ola Hermanson's lab, KI, I was recruited as FoAss to HERM in late 2011. I currently have three PhD students in my lab, and a postdoc coming in the spring. Our research is focused on trying to identify new therapeutic targets to battle acute myeloid leukemia.