International Women's Day
NAME: Susanna Eriksson
POSITION IN THE COMPANY: Director Electron Spectroscopy
PLACEMENT: Sweden
EDUCATION: PhD in Physical Chemistry
FAVORITE FEMALE ROLE MODEL: There are many… Rosa Parks for her bravery… Jacinda Ardern for her leadership... Coco Chanel for her style and determination…
Describe your professional background:
- I joined Scienta Omicron 7 years ago as a Product manager and have since then had different, mainly management, positions in aftermarket and electron spectroscopy. I have had the fortune to have a great career at Scienta Omicron and the past seven years have been the most developing years for me. I have learned so many things about international business, technology, leadership but mostly about myself.
What makes Scienta Omicron a good place to work?
- Front end technology and business in a perfect match in combination with great people! The colleagues are the best! I have also had the possibility to visit places I could only dream of.
What’s the most exciting thing you are working on right now?
- The most exciting things with my job is the market and technical understanding and decisions on what to do next with the company in combination with the challenge on how the get the team as productive, happy and successful as possible. An enthusiastic co-worker with energy and ideas is the greatest reward one can get as a manager.
Do you have any kind of Words of Wisdom for other women already in the industry or who might want to enter the industry?
- Sounds like a kliche, but believe in yourself. In an industry dominated by men you have to trust yourself and your ideas. You can and you will succeed! And remember, you can have a career and raise a family. Do you have children? Read these books by Kate Pankhurst: “Fantastically Great Women…” and you fill find numerous of great role models.
NAME: Taís Orestes Feijó
POSITION IN THE COMPANY: 1st Line Service Physicist – Started on November 15th, 2021
PLACEMENT: Taunusstein, Germany
EDUCATION: PhD in Microelectronics
FAVORITE FEMALE ROLE MODEL: Marie Curie
Describe your professional background:
- I am a Physics Engineer and got my master’s degree and PhD in Microelectronics at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. My research was focused on the growth of 2D materials and their physicochemical properties, working mainly with spectroscopy techniques, as XPS. During the PhD, I spent one year at Paul Drude Institut, in Berlin, working with an MBE system and AFM.
What makes Scienta Omicron a good place to work?
- I like to work here because it is possible to maintain contact with science and, at same time, we deal with the dynamism of the industrial market. Scienta Omicron is a good place to work because it is a very friendly working place and environment. Everyone is always helpful and willing to help and solve new issues.
What’s the most exciting thing you are working on right now?
- I am preparing myself to install a big EVO system in Mumbai, India. New installations are exciting because the customers, in general, are very happy with the new system arriving, and it is fun to watch the first steps of a customer on a new system.
Do you have any kind of Words of Wisdom for other women already in the industry or who might want to enter the industry?
- Don’t allow anyone to say that you cannot do something because you are a woman. There might be limiting minds everywhere, but you shouldn't limit your dreams by the scales of others.
NAME: Kathrin Brüning
POSITION IN THE COMPANY: Service Manager since 2016; joined the company in 2013
PLACEMENT: Germany
EDUCATION: PhD, Physicist
FAVORITE FEMALE ROLE MODEL: Tina Turner, Hillary Clinton, My grand aunt
Describe your professional background:
- Expertise in different techniques of surface science in ultra-high vacuum.
What makes Scienta Omicron a good place to work?
- It is a vibrant place to work: Cooperations with colleagues and customers all around the world in a wide and interesting field of science and application.
What’s the most exciting thing you are working on right now?
- It is the daily business, providing solutions for our customers and finally see how successfully implemented and used. And further, the almost daily work in parallel to improve ourselves and our way of working that makes work-life even better.
Do you have any kind of Words of Wisdom for other women already in the industry or who might want to enter the industry?
- Don’t give up, even if it sometimes feels as being in the wrong place. Make it your place.
“Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth in it, try to learn from it. Otherwise let it bounce off you.” Hillary Clinton
NAME: Petra Olander
POSITION IN THE COMPANY: Team lead, Development, Scienta Envinet - Xenon (since January 2023)
PLACEMENT: Uppsala, Sweden
EDUCATION: PhD in Engineering Physics
FAVORITE FEMALE ROLE MODEL: Tricky question! I would have to say someone brave and altruistic like Sophie Scholl. Perhaps a bit pretentious, but I would like to have more of that quality in my person. As well as in society.
Describe your professional background:
- My PhD-work focused on tribology for greener combustion engines. More particularly on reducing friction and wear. There is much focus on electrification when it comes to sustainable transports, but I think we need to move towards sustainability from every angle that we can. Reducing the overall transportation is of course important and there is also a need to work on the existing fleet of vehicles driven by combustion engines. My research focused on the latter by increasing the knowledge around reducing friction losses with a specific fuel additive as well as reducing the risk of catastrophic wear when reducing the amount of sulphur in the fuel used in large cargo ships. In this work I used several different analysis techniques and ESCA/XPS was one of them. With that experience, I started to work as a test engineer at Scienta Omicron in Uppsala. The role included testing XPS and ARPES analysers, as well as light sources. It also meant working with quality problems, phase-in, and improving the way we worked in different ways. After almost five years in that position, I started to feel that I would need new types of challenges at some point not too far away. Then a chance to work at the Xenon part of Scienta Envinet came up (previously known as Scienta Sensor Systems). I am still very new as the Team lead of the small development group here in Uppsala, but it is exciting and fun in many ways. Great to get to know my new competent colleagues, but also a benefit to continue to meet all my “old” colleagues and even continue to work with some of them. The latter because Omicron is producing the Sauna modules and on top of that, we are “borrowing” some Omicron-people for development work.
What makes Scienta Omicron a good place to work?
- Nice and skilled people
- People with a wide variety of personalities and skills
- Interesting technologies
- Technologies that are used for good purposes. Like systems used for monitoring radioactive isotopes, giving us a chance to know if someone is testing nuclear weapons or not having full control of their nuclear power plants. Products used for monitoring radiation with the aim of protecting us from it. Scientific instruments used for development of solar panels, batteries etc. as well as for interesting and fascinating fundamental research. How nice to work in a company doing all of that.
What’s the most exciting thing you are working on right now?
- Many things are exciting, but since there are many new people and a new organisation of the Xenon business unit, I think the major thing right now is structuring our way of working with development in this new organisation. Both when it comes to larger projects and when it comes to solving problems that appear with new products and that are appearing due to the supply situation in the world. So, finding a way of us working efficiently together. In this work, we are not only the small development team, but also the engineering team is part of our work with continuous improvements.
Do you have any kind of Words of Wisdom for other women already in the industry or who might want to enter the industry?
- Just go for it! Myself, I do not think so much about the fact that I am a woman in an industry where the majority are men. When I work with my colleagues, I think about us as people working together towards the same goal. I think about mine and other people’s skills and knowledge and how we can contribute, not our gender. Having in mind the possibility of different types of prejudice from others and from myself is of course important but should not take up a too large part of the mind.