Vienna, 08.03.2019- For the occasion of the International Women’s Day, this 8th of March, we dedicate our blog to two inspiring women researchers from our SUSBIND project consortium, Ms. Sanne Nusselder and Ms. Ingrid Odegard.
©Sanne Nusselder & Ingrid Odegard, Senior researchers at CE Delft, SUSBIND project partner from the Netherlands
Sanne Nusselder is a senior researcher at CE Delft, an independent research organisation specialised in developing innovative solutions to environmental problems. Sanne specializes in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), climate policy, metals, plastics, circular economy and waste processing.
Ingrid Odegard is a senior researcher, who specialises in LCA, food, biomass, biobased economy, circular economy and is coordinator of the food chains team.
In our project SUSBIND, CE Delft sets out to ensure that the bio-based resin developed has a lower carbon footprint and human health impact when used in an adhesive system than the current formaldehyde based adhesive systems and that the biobased adhesive is in line with all market and regulatory requirements.
What does an ordinary day as researcher/consultant look like?
Sanne: Working for CE Delft can mean visiting a client or a conference such as for the SUSBIND research project, calling people for information for one of the projects that I work on or doing research and writing reports behind the computer. I work for example for governments advising on climate change policy and waste management policy and for companies/industry determining the environmental impact of products (LCAs) and supporting the development of a sustainability strategy.
Ingrid: There really are no ordinary days or weeks at CE Delft.. Some weeks I’m out of the office three days out of five, to visit clients, talk about new project ideas or advise organisations on sustainability strategy. Other weeks I’m at the office most days, with multiple meetings or telcons a day looking after all the different (potential) projects we’re working on. And thankfully, sometimes there are days I can just do the research and write a report.
What do you like best about you work?
Sanne: I like the variation in my work the most. The range of different topics and clients that we work for. Furthermore, I really enjoy working on sustainability topics every day. It gives me the feeling that I can make a small contribution to a more sustainable world
Ingrid: I really enjoy meeting people for whom the things I work and think about on everyday are new. Our systemic way of thinking may be a real eye-opener for some. When clients subsequently incorporate this in their company policy, real change may be the result. Working on sustainability issues every day does give a sense of purpose, but can also be exhausting sometimes, when change happens so (too) slowly. I am therefore very happy to have nice colleagues to work with every day
Is there a famous female scientist/researcher that inspired you?
Sanne: I read the book “Madame Curie: A Biography” about Marie Curie. Even though of course she works in completely different field then I do (chemistry/physics), I do think that her determination as a researcher is very inspiring. I believe that women would benefit from hearing more success stories of other women and from choosing a female role model to aspire to.
How many women work in researcher positions nowadays and is there a need for improvement in the equal distribution of genders in this context?
Ingrid: Over half of the people in our team at CE Delft are women, however, at our clients I would say the share of women is a lot lower, maybe 25%. We do think group meetings benefit from a more even distribution, as is the case for SUSBIND.
