Meet our researchers

A number of skilled researchers do their research to develop a new decision support system for replacement policy.

Amir Garmabaki

Associate Professor, Division of Operation, Maintenance and Acoustics, Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology

Amir Garmabaki’s main scientific interests revolve around optimization & statistical data analytics aspects of reliability, availability, maintainability and safety, maintenance modeling, remaining useful life estimation, software reliability assessment (multi upgradation technology), and climate change.

Wolfgang Birk

CTO & Professor of Automatic Control, Predge

Wolfgang holds a M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Saarland (1997), a Ph.D. degree in Automatic Control from Luleå University of Technology (2002), and a Professor of Automatic Control (2015). He has a background in the development of condition monitoring systems, process control systems for resource efficiency as well as active safety systems in the automotive sector. His research work has led to control and monitoring solutions in several industries. In the railway sector, his main interest and expertise is the use of on-board, way-side, and track monitoring systems for condition monitoring in operation and maintenance.

Ahmad Kasraei

Postdoctoral Researcher, Division of Operation, Maintenance and Acoustics, Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology

Ahmad is a researcher specializing in climate resilience and reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety (RAMS) applications, driven by a passion for sustainable urban development combatting extreme climate events. Collaborating with diverse transport consultancy firms, he has successfully led various qualitative and quantitative research projects.

Ahmad's research principles are rooted in the profound belief that urban assets and infrastructures can be reimagined and managed innovatively to ensure sustainability, quality, and efficiency, particularly in the face of climate change challenges.

Over the past years, he has dedicated his expertise to exploring cutting-edge data-driven decision-making approaches, developing predictive models, and investigating RAMS concepts within the context of evolving climate change scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways [RCPs]/Shared Socioeconomic Pathways [SSPs]).

Vinit Parida

Division of Business Administration and Industrial Engineering, Department of Social Sciences, Technology and Arts, Luleå University of Technology

Vinit is a Chaired Professor for the subject of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. His research interests include digital transformation, business model innovation, organizational capabilities, industrial ecosystem formation, and Circular Economy. He works in close collaboration with numerous large companies (i.e., ABB, Boliden, Epiroc, Ericsson, Komatsu Forest, SCA, Scania, Siemens) and also supports the development of SMEs from manufacturing and high-tech industry. His research results have been published in 200+ leading international peer-reviewed journals, conferences, book chapters and industry/popular publications. Additionally, Vinit is the Associate Editor for Journal of Business Research, the Member of Swedish ministry’s high-level group on digital transformation of Swedish industry, and Scientific Leader for NorrlandsNavet - a Kamprad Family Foundation Center for SMEs Growth and Innovation in Northern Sweden.

Wasif Afzal

Professor, School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University

Wasif Afzal likes to do empirical research within software engineering in general and within software verification and validation in particular. Some keywords that describe his interests are (not exhaustive): software testing and quality assurance, prediction and estimation in software engineering, application of artificial intelligence techniques in software engineering (including search-based software engineering), decision-making based on software analytics, software metrics and evidential assessment of software engineering literature.

Veronica Jägare

Deputy Director Luleå Railway Research Center (JVTC)

Division of Operation, Maintenance and Acoustics, Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology

Veronica Jägare has been the deputy director of Luleå Railway Research Center (JVTC) at Luleå University of Technology for the past 14 years. She has a PhD in Operation and Maintenance Engineering. She was the project leader for ePilot - a large cross-industry project that worked to enable digitalization of railway maintenance. A project that was awarded a place on the IVA 100-list.

Her research profile builds upon the expressed need for better understanding of how new technology that is expected to create potential for great benefits and improvements, can be adapted, implemented, and integrated in the railway industry.

Patricia Carolina Garcia Martin

Postdoctoral Researcher

Division of Business Administration and Industrial Engineering, Department of Social Sciences, Technology and Arts, Luleå University of Technology

Patricia is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Luleå University of Technology. She works with academics, global industry corporations, and small firms supporting organisational growth through the implementation of digital technologies in collaboration with ecosystem partners. Patricia is part of several research projects aimed at developing the ability of Swedish B2B companies to commercialise digitally driven innovative solutions in national and international markets.

Her research interests involve digitalization, business model innovation, scaling of digital solutions, sustainability and Circular Economy, and ecosystem collaboration.

Mohammadreza Ganji

Postdoctoral Researcher, Division of Operation, Maintenance and Acoustics, Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology

Mohammadreza is a researcher focusing on climate-resilient infrastructures, including roads and rail. His research focuses on developing a data-driven approach for integrating climatic impacts into selecting M&R strategies for having more resilient and sustainable infrastructures.

Mohammadreza has over ten years of experience and a solid educational background in civil engineering. His enthusiasm for transportation infrastructure has led him to participate in several large-scale projects.

Seyedehnarjes Mahdavinasab

Postdoctoral Researcher, Division of Operation, Maintenance and Acoustics, Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology

Narges is a dedicated researcher specializing in reliability engineering, energy-efficient scheduling in manufacturing systems, and maintenance strategies. She has a strong passion for artificial intelligence and machine learning, applying these technologies to predict and enhance railway reliability. Currently, her focus is on switch and crossing (S&C) systems in railways, aiming to identify preventive maintenance strategies through the assessment of reliability, availability, maintenance, and sustainability (RAMS), as well as life cycle cost (LCC) parameters.

Olivier Caelen is a machine learning researcher at Sirris. His academic background includes two master's degrees in statistics and computer science, as well as a PhD in machine learning.

Before joining Sirris, Olivier spent over a decade working in data science and machine learning across various industries. He focused on credit card fraud detection and machine learning techniques for anomaly detection for several years, then worked as a lead data scientist on projects related to churn detection, up-selling, and cross-selling. After that, Olivier led data science efforts primarily focusing on supply chain optimization.

In addition to his professional role, Olivier also teaches courses on machine learning and deep learning at university. He is co-author of more than 45 peer-reviewed scientific papers and co-author of the book "Developing Apps with GPT-4 and ChatGPT," published by O'Reilly Media.

Michiel De Vis

Data Scientist, Data and artificial intelligence competence lab (EluciDATA Lab), Sirris

Michiel is a data scientist with a background in AI and machine learning. He has experience in various topics, including energy consumption forecasting, and is currently exploring the use of energy disaggregation for better monitoring of appliances’ consumption patterns.

Robbert Verbeke

Senior Data Scientist, Data and artificial intelligence competence lab (EluciDATA Lab), Sirris

Tom Jacobs

Senior Engineer Precision Manufacturing, Sirris

Tom Jacobs has 18 years of experience in consulting and research of machining processes. He is dedicated to the use of data analytics to predict machining processes. In the past, he participated in European research projects to improve the life cycle of machine tools and machining processes with the help of insights on energy consumption, life cycle assessments, and life cycle costs. He is involved in this project in defining and leading the use cases for machining and in the research on how maintenance strategies in a machining environment is designed.

Samuel Milton

Engineer Precision Manufacturing, Sirris

Samuel Milton is an expert and performs research on predicting and designing models for machining processes, for a.o. simulating and finding the most (economic) optimized cutting conditions. He is involved in this project in how to analyse and interpret results from the use case on energy and maintenance data and doing research on the background.

Johan Öhman

Analytics Developer, Predge

As an analytics developer at Predge, Johan develops and investigates new solutions for predictive maintenance. He holds an MSc in Engineering Physics (2015), from Luleå University of Technology, and a PhD in Experimental Mechanics (2020), from Luleå University of Technology. His research interests are physics-based, and data-driven modeling of industrial systems.

Vanessa Meulenberg

Analytics Developer, Predge

Vanessa is an Analytics Developer and Project Manager at Predge AB. She completed her BSc. in Aeronautical Engineering from Inholland University of Applied Sciences and MSc. in Composite Materials at the Luleå University of Technology.

Ulla Juntti

With 40 years experience within the railway system as a freight rolling's stock planner, design leader for railway infrastructure re - and new investment and as head of a track area responsible of maintenance of the infrastructure and also being one of the founders of Luleå Railway Research Center were she focused on the railway resilient toward climate related events, she will contribute to this project with experience and knowledge.

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Sarah Klein (Former Researcher)

Senior Data Scientist, Data and artificial intelligence competence lab (EluciDATA Lab), Sirris

Sarah is a senior data scientist working in applied research with and for the Belgian technology industry. Her focus is on process analysis, sustainable manufacturing, and privacy-preservation techniques in distributed systems.