The 2023 COMPUTE Summer Retreat will take place on October 23rd, as a fika-to-pizza event.

Transitioning to Industry

The majority of PhD students from Medicine, Engineering and Natural Sciences go on to a career outside of academia. To help you decide if this is the career path for you and assist you in this crucial journey, we invite you to our upcoming COMPUTE event with the theme “Transitioning to industry”. The program is targeted at both PhD students and researchers. The event will be on-campus at Palaestra et Odeum in downtown Lund.

You will have the opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge from speakers who have successfully transitioned from academia to industry and hear about challenges and recruitment practices in industry.  In addition, Tina Persson, a professional career coach, will hold a workshop on how to present yourself effectively on LinkedIn and craft compelling CVs and the use of AI in this context.

There will be ample time for networking and a poster session in the evening.  To facilitate the discussion we hope PhD students like to present a  poster about their research.  Poster should be aimed the other COMPUTE members.   A popular science poster would also work well.

Poster session

To facilitate the discussion during he poster session, it is hoped PhD students would like to present a  poster about their research.  Poster should preferably be in vertical format.  Posters from more senior participants are equally welcome.  You should bring posters that are understandable to students and scientists from completely different fields or even members of the general public. You can use scientific terms if it is necessary but make sure to introduce them well.  If you do not have time to prepare such a popular science poster, you can bring a regular scientific poster.

It is not necessary to use the Lund University templates for the poster. If you did not register for a poster but want to bring one anyway, you can do that.

Programme

The morning and afternoon sessions will feature COMPUTE alumni who talk about their career after COMPUTE, people from industry, and a more hands-on session on career management.

9:45: Welcome

10:00: "Starting a Tech-Company as an academic"
     Alexandros Sopasakis, Founder & CEO Ximantis AB, Senior Lecturer at LU

10:45: Fika

11:15: "From Jurassic Park to Big Pharma through Lund – A career in data scienc"
     Ufuk Kirik, Associate Director of Data Science, Astra Zeneca,
     Former LU PhD student

12:00: Lunch

13:00: "From Numerical Analysis to Computational Fluid Dynamic - the start of my career"
     Lea Miko Versbach, COMPUTE allumni, now FS Dynanamics

13:30: "Unlocking Your Unique Value to Any Employer"
     Workshop with Tina Persson (Passage2Pro AB)

15:00: Fika

15:30: Continuation of the workshop with Tina Persson

16:30: Interactive session

17:00: Poster session setup

17:30: Pizza + Poster session

Presenter Biographies

Alexandros Sopasakis

Alexandros Sopasakis is a Docent at Lund University and the founder behind Ximantis, a pioneering startup specializing in traffic forecasting. Part of his research delves into the intricate dynamics of particle interactions, ranging from everyday vehicles, whether human-driven or autonomous. As a Principal Investigator for Horizon 2020 and Vinnova projects, his focus centers on congestion, where machine learning and Markov processes intersect to decode complex interactions. Alexandros has earned a patent for his groundbreaking system, enabling real-time prediction of traffic congestion. His esteemed collaborations include esteemed organizations such as Trafikverket, Skanetrafik, and VDot in the USA.

Ufuk Kirik

I am an alumnus of Engineering Mathematics program at LTH.  My early research was on mass-spectrometry proteomics.  I worked on various projects with the goal of categorizing and interpreting the proteomic changes in various types of solid tumors; e.g. vs matched healthy tissue, before/after treatment, or primary vs local/distant metastasis.  Following my PhD, I have had a short postdoc on searching for increasingly more specific antibodies using affinity purification and NGS.  Later, I moved to NNF Center for Protein Research in Copenhagen, where I was working with application of machine learning on LC-MS/MS proteomics data and PPI networks.  I have then joined Astra Zeneca in Mölndal in Feb 2020, as a Senior Data Scientists working with drug discovery using knowledge graphs.  I have since grown in scope and responsibility, subsequently built a team of data scientists, bioinformaticians and software developers working on facilitating wider adoption and usage of our KG assets.

Lea Miko Versbach

Lea Versbach is a former COMPUTE member.  She defended her PhD in numerical analysis 2022.  During her time at Lund University she also worked as a PhD student representative at the faculty level. After her PhD she decided to join industry and started working at FS Dynamics, a consultant company for simulations in fluid and structural dynamics.  After working full time for a customer in the semiconductor industry, she now works on several in-house projects including acoustics and wind turbines.

Tina Persson

Tina Persson, Docent is an ICF Certified PCC Career & Leadership and Team Coach, Author, and Entrepreneur whose creativity, confidence, and tenacity have earned her a reputation as a dynamic leader. She is also an invited speaker facilitating seminars and workshops for PhDs professionals and early researchers, supporting their career development. As a businesswoman, she is the Founder of Passage2pro AB, Aptahem AB a biotech start-up company featured in over 20 scientific publications, the inventor of 2 scientific patents, and is the host of the PhD Career Stories podcast.

After spending nearly two decades in academia, Tina entered the recruitment industry, gaining eight years of expertise working as a Recruiter and Talent Sourcer. Combining her multifaceted experience, she is adept at empowering researchers to pave their way to a smooth transition from the academic world to a fulfilling career beyond academia. She has during 2023 been awarded by Education 2.0, HEaL in Tampa, Florida, and TITAN, Business Woman of the Year.

Registration

To register for the event, please fill in the registraion form below.  Registration is to close on the 17th of October 2023.

Registration is now closed.

COMPUTE looks forward to welcoming you on the 23rd of October 2023.