“I wanted to meet more people – so I decided to leave the bench for a role in sales”

After an exciting year with the Swedish Doping Agency, Lovisa missed the aspect of personal encounters. Today she works as an Account Manager and is responsible for the sales of consumables and instruments for sample preparation – it’s the best of two worlds, says Lovisa.

Lovisa Österlind, matster in analytical chemistry decided to leave the lab and started working as a sales specialist.

Hi Lovisa, how did your interest in chemistry begin?

During high school, biology was actually what was closest to my heart. I had had a vision thatI would study different eco-systems and collect water samples, wearing rubber boots and overalls. But then chemistry captured me during a course where we performed analyses on water samples. That is when I understood that chemistry is strongly connected with biology and our everyday life and our environment.

Was it an obvious choice for you to follow this interest?

It was obvious for me to continue my studies after completing high school, but not that my choice would be chemistry. After reading up on the job market, I felt that it looked better for trained chemists rather than biologists. There is a shortage of trained chemists and salary wisethey are better paid – this was ultimately what made me decide to study chemistry.  

"It deals with questions concerning what is in our food, in our clothes and in our environment.

Which chemistry did you chose to focus on?

I decided after my bachelor in chemistry to focus on analytical chemistry for my Master’s degree. During my bachelor studies I was introduced to physical chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, neurochemistry and analytical chemistry. Although all these disciplines have their charm, analytical chemistry just felt like the right fit.

In what way did analytical chemistry intrigue you?

The analytical chemistry is so connected to our everyday life. It deals with questions about what is in our food, our clothes and in the environment. In contrast to somewhat more “abstract” chemistry disciplines such as physical chemistry, analytical chemistry felt more concrete. In addition, the work market is great for analytical chemists.

Was there any special moment during your education that was determining for your future decision?

It has to be the basic course in analytical chemistry during my second year. The course work consisted of gathering samples from our environment, analyses of different types of food and thrilling practicals. We got hands on experience and used instruments such as gas and liquid chromatography systems as well as mass spectrometers. I realized that analytical chemistry came easy to me and I wanted to become even better at it.

You did your final year thesis at the Swedish Doping Agency – could you tell us more about that?

It was great and I can really recommend others to do a thesis project outside of academia. After doing a summer internship (at the doping agency), after my first year in the master’s program, the opportunity arose to do my thesis work there as well. The lab runs a lot of routine analyses, which means that I would analyze about 50-100 urine samples a day. But after a day or so it feels like working with any type of sample water or another liquid. The instruments we use are developed to detect extremely low levels of doping agents and that is what makes it so exciting. Athletes should compete on equal terms and preventing cheating isan important task.

What do you do today?

I work with in-house sales of consumables and instruments for research and development. It is great to work in a lab developing new analytical methods, but after a year in the lab I wanted to meet more people. A job in sales means that I get to interact with people every day and make use of my expertise in chemistry.What is the best and most challenging aspect of your job?The best feeling is to help customers and clients to find solutions to their analytical needs, problems and issues and how we can optimize their workflow with our products. The biggest challenge is all the technical aspects of an instrument, there is a lot to keep track of as the instruments are extremely advanced.

How has your role been affected during the pandemic?

I was hired just when the pandemic struck and I had to start my new role from my kitchen. Not a great start, I can tell you. It takes much longer to learn the routines of the organization by yourself. But it has been ok – we have become super users of Teams.

So, what are your plans for the future?
I’m actually moving to a new role as Account Manager for another company. I am going to be responsible for the sales of consumables and instruments for sample preparation. If the sample preparation is inefficient or not optimized, then the results of the analysis is going to be bad, no matter how sensitive your instrument is.

This is a great area to be an expert in and it is exciting to be able to use that expertise to help our clients.

 

 

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