Isabella Hansen works at Combine as a Technical Consultant in the Control Systems team. She studied Electrical Engineering at LTH with a master’s degree in Control systems and Automation. After graduation, she worked within the automation industry, gaining knowledge about PLC programming and Scada systems, mainly within the process industry. After joining Combine, Isabella started working on an automation project for the defense industry, where she could combine her theoretical control systems knowledge with her hands-on automation experience.

What is it like to work as a consultant at Combine?
I really enjoy working as a consultant at Combine it gives me a lot of opportunities to try different types of assignments which helps me decide what path I want to follow. The environment at Combine is very accepting and everyone wants to see you thrive, which makes working here a very fun and positive experience.

How would you describe the culture at Combine?
Combine really cares about their employees and focuses on personal growth. The mindset is to have fun and push yourself to accomplish your personal goals. Since most of the employees have assignments at different companies, Combine arranges a variety of activities where the employees can meet and get to know each other. For example, breakfasts at the office or different types of after works. 

What is the best thing about your profession?
The best thing for me is that I get to work with software and hardware. This gives me the satisfaction of first getting to program a specific function and then seeing how it works in real life. It is the perfect combination of using the theory learned from school and applying it to a real problem. Another thing that I enjoy about this profession, is that it is constantly evolving which means that I get to learn new things every day and adapt this in so many different industries. 

Jurie Germishuy is a Technical Consultant at Combine. He is originally from Cape Town, South Africa and have called Sweden his home for about 5 years now. Jurie moved around quite a bit growing up and explains that he really enjoys experiencing different cultures, and especially learning new languages. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in actuarial science, combining his interests for statistics and mathematical modeling, but later changed direction for his Master’s degree studies in Sweden as he noticed the momentum of the field of Data Science and the exciting opportunities to contribute to the acceleration of progress in many areas. Before joining Combine, Jurie spent some time developing AI products for insurance companies, banks and even a first responder startup at his university incubator.

What is it like to work as a consultant at Combine?
Working at Combine is a holistic experience. The time spent at the office contributes to deeply interesting conversations with colleagues, shared activities, and a supportive sense of community. Working at Combine means being exposed to diversity in every sense, from a wide range of assignments to international perspectives, competencies, and opportunities for growth. As a consultant, you get the freedom to choose your own path, to pursue the areas you find most interesting and to work on meaningful and challenging assignments that contribute to the state-of-the-art in the industry.

What is the best thing about your profession?
The part I enjoy most about my profession is that my work takes me to the most unexpected places, from the doctor’s consultation room to the bottom of the ocean. Our solutions contribute to so many industries and thus allow us to expand our knowledge of areas we would never have encountered before. This also encourage us to crosspollinate ideas with colleagues and increase the breadth and depth of our technical knowledge to bring our best ideas to the real-world.

Tell us about an interesting assignment.
I’ve been the technical lead for a project on ocean innovation for about 2 years now. When I started I had little to no knowledge about the ocean and that only a tiny fraction of it was being actively explored. Combine has now contributed with machine learning models that allow for automatic species identification, allowing experts to save countless hours in studying invasive species, mapping species distributions, or even discovering new or rarely seen species in Swedish and international waters. The potential of this project is as large as the oceans we help to explore, and I am extremely grateful to be able to work on such groundbreaking solutions that are also contributing to the preservation of marine life and these precious ecosystems.

Meet Mattias Grundelius, who works at Combine as a Technical Consultant. He has a master degree in electrical engineering with a focus on automatic control, measurment systems and medical technology and a doctors degree in automatic control from Lund University. His thesis work during his doctoral education was to optimize the movement of open liquid packages in a packaging machine. His work was successfull and applied in the industry. He also received a research award for it. After his studies he started working with building automation. He spent 15 years working with high level design of the control engineering tools, PID auto tuning and model predictive control appled to smart buildings. In his spare time enjoys long distance running and road cycling for excersice and hiking for leisure, during the winter a do downhill and backcountry skiing.

What is it like to work as a consultant at Combine?
As a person I am curius and eager to learn new things and to challenge myself. At Combine I have had the opportunity to apply my skills in new domains and using new tools which has been very rewarding.

What is the best thing about your profession?
As a consultant in automatic control you can apply your skills to many differnet problems in different areas which I think is very exciting. Also using automatic control many processes can be improved by applying sensor feedback and optimization.

Tell us about an interesting assignment?
My last assignment was develping and electro mechanical break system for heavy vehicles. There I had the opportunity to apply many tools from my automatic control toolbox to solve the problems of controlling the electrical motor in the actuator, the wheel slip and the estimation of the vehicle state.

Astrid was born in France but grew up in Sweden, and she speaks multiple languages. Her academic journey led her to pursue a master's degree in Engineering Physics at LTH, where she delved into the realms of machine intelligence and automatic control. This educational foundation has equipped her with a solid understanding of cutting-edge technologies and their applications.

Driven by a passion for continuous learning and a penchant for overcoming challenges, Astrid actively seeks opportunities to expand her knowledge. In 2022, she undertook and successfully completed the grueling Swedish Classic, a testament to her physical endurance and commitment to personal achievements. Additionally, her competitive spirit extends beyond personal challenges, as she actively participates in national padel tournaments 

What is it like to work as a consultant at Combine? 
In my profession, I find the greatest satisfaction in the opportunity to contribute to innovative solutions. The ability to learn and adapt in a field that constantly evolves allows me to be at the forefront of technological advancements. What I find most fulfilling is the chance to apply my skills to projects that contribute positively to society, creating innovative solutions that address real-world challenges.

How would you describe the culture at Combine?
There is great diversity in the culture; the people who work here come from different backgrounds and have different experiences. It is really fun to see how this contributes to a lovely work environment where we can all learn from each other and collaborate openly. Having such diverse perspectives and knowledge allows us to be creative and find new solutions together. I find this inspiring and it makes it fun working at Combine.