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?
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.
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.