Sofie Holm-Janas is a Data Scientist at NIRAS. She graduated from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen with both a master’s degree and a PhD in physics. She tried out a few different physics directions during her bachelor’s and beginning of her master’s, before settling in the space between computational physics and quantum physics, which was also the theme of her PhD and postdoc.
Please give a description of the work you do in your current position.
I work at NIRAS, which is an engineering consultancy. It’s a very big consulting house that specializes in a vast range of topics – a few examples are the process industry in food and life science, roads and railways, as well as water management and climate adaptation.
I work as a data scientist on both internal projects for other NIRAS departments and external projects for customers, where I help them gain insights into their data and automate and optimize complex tasks.
My projects so far have been in quite a few different domains, including beer tasting panels, benchmarking of water utility companies, and railway electrification. We typically work together with the in-house domain experts, so my work also consists of understanding the project and business case from their point of view, and translating that into data science.
On the technical side, I’ve worked with data analysis, as well as software development and meta-heuristic optimization using tools such as python, SQL, and postGIS.
What motivated you to study physics or engineering in the first place?
I’ve always loved understanding big and complex ideas (which to me is essential in physics) although I wasn’t strictly committed to physics. I had a very good math teacher in high school who was originally a physicist. That guided me to the beauty of applied math in understanding the world. After high school the choice for me was between studying math, physics, chemistry – or literature science (probably no math there though!). I visited different campus open days, and it just seemed like the physicists had the most nerdy fun – and that made it an easy choice!
What made you decide to pursue a career in the private industry?
After my PhD, I pursued a postdoc at the Technical University of Denmark. While I loved certain aspects of academia, it slowly became clear that it wasn’t the right fit for me in the long run – and I was also pretty committed to deciding for myself where I wanted to live, and not move around the world for jobs. Finding a place with interesting projects with a tangible effect on the real world drew me to this part of the private sector.
How do you use the skills you learned as a physicist or engineer in your work?
During my time as a researcher, I learned how to approach big and tough problems and divide them into smaller parts to grapple complex solutions. These skills are valuable when encountering new domains and complex datasets, and gives me some resilience when something that seemed simple turns out to be more complicated. Besides this, I also use the competencies I have built within programming and algorithms, as well as statistics and math to solve the problems I encounter.
What does being a physicist mean to you?
For me, physics has been about understanding big and complex ideas and systems in a systematic and logical way. It’s about being curious and looking underneath the next layer to see what’s hidden there.
Becoming a physicist has also given me a wonderful community of other physicists, who seem to share a way of understanding and approaching the world. That community is actually a big part of my identity as a physicist.
What advice would you give to young people (in particular women and minorities) with a background in physics who would like to pursue a career in the private industry?
Try and try again! Don’t be afraid to apply to a wide range of jobs, you might be surprised by what you find interesting. Your skills are in high demand, and remember that job interviews aren’t an exam to ace, but also the place to decide if you actually want the job they’re offering. Remember that while your education has maybe felt like a somewhat linear climb upwards from school to university degree, the job market isn’t a linear climb. It’s totally fine to try something, and then try something different afterwards – and probably more fun that way.
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