An international team of R&D engineers
Research and development appeals to Ehsan on many different levels. The work fits well with his curious and analytical mindset, as well as his preference for novelty. R&D at EasyMining not only requires all of that to formulate totally new processes for reclaiming nutrients from waste streams but also to devise optimal versions of those processes for real-world application.
– We come up with ideas, and we test them to see whether they can be implemented and whether the concepts actually work. Then, we try to optimise everything and make sure it’s running in a way that’s good for the environment, good for society, good economically, and so on, Ehsan explains.
And while EasyMining’s R&D team is a diverse group with a variety of backgrounds, they share many of the same qualities that led Ehsan to where he is today.
– We have people from everywhere. I’m from Iran, and we have people from India, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Romania, Australia, and many other places. It’s a good combination. We all came to work at EasyMining for similar reasons. We all want to take on these challenges, he explains.
Although, Ehsan now has a unique challenge all his own.
Balancing employment with doctoral studies
In August of 2023, right after his change in job titles, Ehsan officially entered the industrial PhD programme at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Supported by the Ragnar Sellberg Foundation, his research will utilise a project he heads up at EasyMining.
In essence, the research aims to produce clean commercial products from waste streams.
– Simply put, I am trying to transform trash into valuable products, Ehsan concludes.
Even though he can use the labs at SLU’s main campus in Uppsala, not far from EasyMining’s facilities, Ehsan admits managing it all can still be tough.
– It’s hard because I’m the project’s lead R&D engineer and the PhD student. Sometimes, that makes me want to go in different directions; for example, the project lead part of me wants to focus on the customer aspect, and the doctoral student part of me wants to take the perfect picture of the material under the microscope. So I have to balance those things, he explains.
Ehsan says he’d considered pursuing a PhD before, but the only projects he could find felt too academic and not feasible for implementation. It was through his experiences at EasyMining that he encountered a research avenue that felt worth exploring.
– We work on new processes to tackle real problems. It’s research that’s going to make it out of the lab.
Watch the film where Ehsan talks about his research project, supported by the Ragnar Sellberg Foundation: