TUM Alumni Freia Jung-Klein fights with persistence and self-confidence for the protection of the nature. The local politician of the Greens refuses to be silenced or to stop asking uncomfortable questions (Image: Private).
Doctorate at TUM
It is so professional and well-grounded that Freia Jung-Klein wants to “understand it better herself first” and thus decides to study Agricultural Sciences at TUM in Weihenstephan. In 1984 she graduates with a diploma degree from the Department of Plant Production with a thesis on the detection of herbicides in soils and waters and manages to develop the topic, which she is ‘totally hooked on’, into a dissertation at the Chair of Botany.
With her ecotoxicological findings Jung-Klein had entered previously unchartered territory in agricultural research and thus gained a postdoc position at the renowned University of California. There, manufacturer Monsanto’s ears are deaf to her scientific studies on glyphosate, which were already alarming back then. “Unfortunately Monsanto has not taken any appropriate action whatsoever in response to my findings, which means my entire scientific work was in vain.”
I have grown spiritually and in my humanity, instead of professionally.
Like David and Goliath
By sheer chance environmentalist Freia Jung-Klein gets voted into the district council in the role of parliamentary party leader right after the Green Party wins her over in 2009. Even though she can let her visions fly here, making them reality is far from easy. “What I had to learn in the industry at Monsanto, I experienced now first hand working as a politician in the Palatinate region: you are fighting an all-powerful opponent and all the lobbying prevents you from achieving anything really. Sometimes it felt like David and Goliath.”
Studying at TUM has also equipped Freia Jung-Klein with perseverance and tenacity. “TUM has deeply shaped me; endurance, persistence and self-confidence.” Even if the entire district council collectively leaves the conference room, her word stands against the county commissioner’s and dozens of lawyer’s letters with injunctions pile up on her desk, the local politician of the Greens refuses to be silenced or to stop asking uncomfortable questions. “If I didn’t probe, many things would not come to light. It’s just how I am.”
But despite all her willpower and belief in the good cause she has to admit that her relentless commitment to protecting the environment, nature and the climate takes a lot of strength, in particular emotionally. What helps her here is her strong faith, her conviction that the creation has to be preserved. Unswervingly the Palatinate native enthusiastically sets out day after day to pitch environmental protection to the people.
Freia Jung-Klein (Image: Private).
Degree Agricultural Sciences 1984, Doctorate 1988
From 1978 until 1984 Freia Jung-Klein studied Agricultural Sciences at TUM in Weihenstephan. Following her work as a research assistant at the Regional Office for Food she earned a doctorate degree in the field of Environmental Toxicology at the Chair of Botany there in 1988. She spent the years between 1988 and 1990 at the University of California as a Postgraduate Researcher.
For almost thirty years now she is engaged in environmental education of children and adults, and at schools. Freia Jung-Klein is vibrating with energy, is continuously expanding her knowledge of environmental governance and nature education, she is a trained environmental auditor and will soon complete her training in teaching meditation.
Additionally, she is holding numerous voluntary positions; in the Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND meaning German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation), in refugee aid, as a lay judge, on the board of her parish. Since 2009 she is highly committed to the Green Party (B90/die Grünen); as parliamentary party leader, then as a member in the county council Kaiserslautern, as chairwoman of the chapter she founded in Weilerbach and since 2014 as a member of the district council of the Palatinate Region.
Freia Jung-Klein is married and has three adult children.
