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Lead Analyst of Energy Logistics Warns of Culture Shock


Name: Dimitri Schritt 

PhD: Mathematical Physics, University of Canterbury, 2012



What was your main area of research?

I was working on a model for dark matter based on fundamental symmetries using quantum field theory.



What is your current job?

I am a Lead Analyst of Energy Logistics at Equinor in Stavanger, Norway.


I use my market knowledge and technical skills in Data Science, Machine Learning (ML), and Operations Research (OR) to drive commercial results by providing decision support to traders and charterers.


I appreciate that my impact is measured in dollars.



How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now? 

I found this position through LinkedIn.


PhD graduate ➡️ Postdoc ➡️ Researcher ➡️ Data Scientist ➡️ Senior Data Scientist ➡️ Lead Analyst



Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia? 

I really enjoyed my PhD, but was ultimately uncomfortable with the highly theoretical nature of my work and the realization that it may never be confirmed by experiment. I thus pivoted to a more applied field and taught myself to write code. I also learned ML and OR. It took me a long time to finally decide to leave academia, but when I did, it was easy. I just wish I had done it much sooner.



What advice do you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?

  1. Don't expect people on the inside to be overly enthusiastic about your move. The good news is, you are likely to find lots of people with a wide variety of academic backgrounds in the workforce. 

  2. Be prepared for a culture shock. You may be used to pursuing questions just because you find them interesting. Once you get out into the real world, it's all about the bottom line. 

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