Education
After finishing her Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Mühlenbruch worked as a scientist at the University of Bonn for almost 20 years before becoming the University"s first Equal Opportunities Commissioner.
After finishing her Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Mühlenbruch worked as a scientist at the University of Bonn for almost 20 years before becoming the University"s first Equal Opportunities Commissioner.
She is the President of the European Platform of Women Scientists in Brussels. Since the late 1980s her research and concept development have focused on gender equality, gender mainstreaming, and programmes and processes regarding the recruitment and retention of female scientists in Germany as well as at the European Union level That same year she was co-author of the book 100 Jahre Frauenstudium: Frauen der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn alongside Annette Kuhn, Valentine Rothe.
She spoke at an international conference, Barriers to women"s career in Academia: A dialogue between social psychology and policy, sponsored by the European Science Foundation and held in Perugia on the 6 October 2001.
Mühlenbruch was Managing Director of the Center of Excellence Women and Science (CEWS) in Bonn from 2000 until 2005, managing several research projects funded by the German government and the European Union in the field of gender equality in science. Under her leadership, CEWS drafted the winning proposal for the establishment of the European Platform of Women Scientists and signed the contract with the European Commission in 2005.
Brigitte Mühlenbruch was on the Founding Board (the democratic decision-making body) of the European Platform of Women Scientists until its formal establishment as an AISBL. In 2005 she and Almuthe Schlüter wrote a paper for the European Commission about Databases of Women Scientists: Overview, Best Practice Guideline and Future Perspectives. At the EPWS Paris Conference "New Perspectives on Women Scientists Careers in Europe" which held on June 11, 2014 at the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, Amphitheater Stourdzé, Paris, Mühlenbruch gave the welcome address.
She is a member of the European Commission"s Network of Women in Decision Making in Politics and the Economy, and Vice President of the Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Foundation in Germany. In 2003, Mühlenbruch was a member of the Steering Committee for the Study on Networks of Women Scientists in Brussels which confirmed the need of a network for women scientists at European level