Meet the Speakers - Moving out of Academia to Aviation and Aerospace
Join us for the latest event in our "Moving Out of Academia" series, aimed at helping CERN Alumni – both current and soon-to-be – make the move into Aviation & Aerospace. This is a great chance to hear from alumni who have successfully transitioned from academia to new careers in these industries.
Our speakers will reflect on how their time at CERN equipped them for their current roles and share what new skills they had to learn along the way. They will also offer practical advice on how to translate the expertise you have built at CERN into terms that employers in the industry will understand.
Though each of the speakers now works in the aviation and aerospace fields, their roles vary widely, showing the range of career options available to CERN alumni. This event is a chance to hear their personal stories, ask your questions, and learn how to approach this transition, avoid common mistakes, and present your skills to future employers.
Discover their roles:
Sarah Barnes
Research Scientist at German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Sarah graduated from the University of Manchester with a PhD in experimental particle physics working on the ATLAS experiment which was followed by a postdoc at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Sarah joined the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in 2018 and now leads the Methods and Processing Group at the DLR Institute for the Protection of Maritime Infrastructures. The group's technical focus is on the development of methods for the acquisition, processing and high-level analysis of data from optical and acoustic systems as well as in the domain of cosmic-ray tomography with the aim of improving safety and security in the maritime domain.
Mario Bolivar Caba
Head A320 Family Programme Office at Airbus
Mario has a Master's degree in Software Engineering. He did his master's thesis at CERN as a Technical Student, on mass data storage on AFS. He then moved to the aerospace industry. For seven years he worked for Airbus Helicopters, in different positions from industrial operations to services for the inflight fleet. He then moved to commercial aircraft aviation, and worked in the digital technologies related to industrial production increase, and currently he heads the A320 Family Programme Office at Airbus.
Frida Maria Eriksson
Mechanical engineer at SWISSto12
Frida is a mechanical engineer from Sweden with a passion for innovation in the aerospace industry. She worked as a RF mechanical fellow at CERN from 2016 to 2019 before returning to Sweden as a project manager in the space sector. After nearly two years, Frida missed Switzerland and moved back, joining a startup focused on small satellites, where she contributed to the mechanical design of a new generation. In the past year, she has transitioned to working on geostationary satellites.
Patryk Wojciech Oleniuk
Lead Software Engineer, Starlink @SpaceX
Pat is a Software Engineer at SpaceX where he leads operations software for largest satellite constellation, Starlink. He left CERN after his VIA Fellowship program 2015-2017 to do a master's degree in Lausanne, at EPFL. During his master's he worked in the US on the first few commercial Hyperloop tests. For the last 3 years he has worked in the intersection of space, software and data, building tools to operate Starlink satellite fleet and other assets.