Lena Abrahamsson

The sustainable and gender equal workplaces of the future

Lena Abrahamsson is Lena Abrahamsson is professor and head of subject in Human Work Science and also vice scientific leader for the future area “Creaternity” at Luleå University of Technology (LTU), Sweden. She is also board member of Blekinge Institute of Technology. Her own research interest covers workplace, technology and organisational changes, learning, safety & health, and gender issues in industrial companies. She is today active in projects on digitalisation, green industrial transformation, and sustainable development, many of them with a gender perspective, in the mining and steel industry. She leads a research group of 29 people, supervises doctoral students and works as a project manager in research projects. In the Master program Industrial Design Enineering she teaches mainly in the courses "Organisational development" and  "Production and organisation" . 

Related links

Some current research projects

1. Roadmap for attractive, inclusive, and safe mine work. 2022–2025. Vinnova.
2. Green work in a green mine – the green industrial transformation’s effect on work, technology, and organisation. 2022–2025. LTU. 
3. EquaStream, gender equality in akademia. 2022–2023. SI.
4. Work organization, work environment and health & safety – research summary and analysis. 2022. Mynak.
5. Gender, work, and technology in male-dominated organisations. Conclusions from the mining industry. 2020–2022. Forte. 
6. Mining communities – learnings and networking. 2021–2022. Vinnova. 
7. NEXGEN SIMS – Next generation carbon neutral pilots for smart intelligent mining systems (our part: The digital mine worker). 2021–2024. EU.
8. ENGIE, Encouraging girls to study geosciences and engineering. 2020-2022. EU Horizon 2020.

Short cv

I am born in Kalix, a small town in the county of Norrbotten in north of Sweden. Since 1985 I have lived in Luleå, the main city of Norrbotten. I studied at Luleå University of Technology (LTU) for five years (1985-1989) at the Master program Industrial design. The following years (1990-1995) I worked as a consultant at Ifa AB with production development for companies in the Swedish industry. In 1995 I started my doctoral studies at the Division of Industrial Work Environment, Department of Human Work Sciences, LTU. I took my doctoral degree in 2000 and have since then worked as assistent professor, associated professor (since 2003) and since 2006 as full professor in human work sciences, 2013-2016 chair professor in gender & technology and since 2016 chair professor in Industrial Production Environment. In 2001 I was visiting researcher at University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia. During 2002-2005 I was coordinator for LTU's postgradute school Arena Learning. 2007-2010 I was chairperson of the research area Production & Organisation at LTU, one of the twelve key areas defined by the university. 2013-2015 I was chair for LTU's appointment board no 1. 2016-2018 I was vice dean of the faculty of engineering and science. 2019-2021 I was dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology.  Since 2022 I am vice scientific leader for LTU's Future Area "Creaternity".

In addition to my assingments at LTU, I have been member of the Swedish Work Environment Authority’s advisory council (2010-2019), member of the Swedish government’s commission for gender equality in working life (2012-2015) and member of the board of FORTE (2013-2018), vice chair of FORTE (2016-2018). Since 2018 I am member of the board of Blekinge Technical Collage.

Personal

In my spare time I enjoy travelling. At home there are many nice building projects with mine and Jan's two old houses, one downtown in Luleå and one country house. I also enjoy reading books (mostly crime), take photos and do some painting. And I try to spend as much time as possible outdoors. In summertime we take walks in the forests, do som canoeing and sometimes cross country running (orientering) and wintertime we ski and skate. During 2011-2014 I was chair and boardmember for Luleå Basket.