Meet Farnaz Khodakhah new PhD‑student at STC

Thu 01 Oct 2020 09:30

Meet Farnaz Khodakhah, new PhD-studet at STC Research Centre. Farnaz will work within Industrial IoT together with the research group for Communication Systems and Networks.

Can you tell a little about your background?

I’m from Iran and I took my bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering from Shiraz University of Technology and master degree in Telecommunication at the Shiraz University. I was working on wireless communication in my master degree and my thesis was about soft network coding cooperative communication and energy harvesting.

What are you going investigate as a PhD-student at STC?

I have been here since three weeks ago. I took two courses, Science Philosophy and distributed Algorithm, in this semester. Moreover, I am reading some papers related to my Ph.D. topic. In general, the theme of my work is increasing the robustness of industrial communication systems (i.e., IIoT), for instance, by “network-coded cooperative communication protocols/algorithms”. Thus, I need to start developing an initial understanding of the topic and also categorize different dimensions/areas of works, and importantly the research gaps in IIOT. After reading papers, I should talk to my supervisors Professor Mikael Gidlund and Dr. Aamir Mahmood about my exact Ph.D. topics.

Why did you choose Mid Sweden University?

I was searching for a PhD position when I saw Prof. Mikael Gidlund announcing an available position on LinkedIn. The subject that he was searching for was really interesting for me since it was related to the work that I have done during my master.

I also think that Sweden is a good choice for me to proceed with my PhD. Sweden offers good salary and there are a lot of industries in Sweden such as Ericsson and Volvo that is related to my field. So maybe I can have a great future in this country.

How do you like it here so far?

This is my first time in Sweden and everybody here is speaking to me about the winter and the darkness. Yesterday I went to the shopping center to buy a warm jacket and I also got the advice to buy gloves and flashlight to see my way in winter.

But I think it is great here! You have a beautiful city and I like when all the threes are shifting colors now in the autumn. I went to the lake, Sidsjön, and it was really beautiful. I also went to the hill, Norra berget, where I could se the whole city, it was really beautiful.

You have really kind people and everybody is affable and talks to me. But I just have one problem, there is not a lot of females in my research group, it would be nice with more girls, Farnaz ends up laughing.