Unfold your career
Fjolla Ademaj-Berisha, Scientist, Wireless Communications
Meet Fjolla Ademaj-Berisha! She joined SAL in 2019, right after she graduated from Vienna University of Technology with a PhD in Telecommunications. During her studies, she was also engaged as an assistant for projects and teaching at the Telecommunications Institute.
Story Time – or how Fjolla would describe herself with one fun fact: “I used to travel a lot during my PhD and one time I was going from Beijing to Toronto for a conference, which is both a 12-hour flight and a 12-hour time difference. When I stepped out of the airplane in Toronto, I was so jet lagged, probably my worst jet lag ever! I still nailed it at the conference afterwards – even though I had to skip most of the social events ;-).”
"SAL provides a great opportunity for practical research"
Fjolla’s Career Path at SAL
“I joined SAL in autumn 2019, right after my PhD graduation. At that time, our Wireless Communications team was still small and in the process of being built up. I was the third member in a team that now counts fourteen people. We started with some project ideas that quickly turned into cooperative projects with our industrial partners as well as EU-funded projects with bigger consortia.
Less than one year after my start at SAL, I was leading two projects in the field of security and safety. One of the projects focuses on the automotive industry, where our goal is to develop a testing framework that identifies, verifies and validates wireless components in vehicles. The second project brings Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) together in industrial applications. Here we are developing algorithms that improve robustness in wireless communication and lead to intelligent, secure and trustworthy systems.
In the meantime, in 2021, I started another project: my family project! I was away for a little over a year, focusing on my family. While I was on maternity leave, I stayed connected to my projects, focusing mainly on coordinating tasks. I am very grateful for my manager at SAL, Hans-Peter Bernhard, for being so supportive during this stage of my life and encouraging me to run my family and work projects at the same time! In general, SAL provides a very good setting for conducting research: it promotes innovation, own research ideas and collaborations all the while offering a welcoming work environment. I am glad to be back and continuing where I left off!”
Do you have a professional role model?
My role models are definitely my parents. They worked very hard to provide for our family, even though they were in difficult circumstances for almost two decades and had to experience a war. Still, they never failed to teach me the values of respect, good communication and responsibility.
What was your highlight at SAL so far?
My research in general is a highlight for me. The two projects I managed resulted in excellent publications and the collaborations we set up during that time are still ongoing.
What do you appreciate about SAL?
There’s a lot to appreciate. SAL provides a very modern work environment with high-level infrastructure. As a new mother, I value the great support that SAL shows employees with families. My working days are very smooth thanks to the flexible working time and home office hours. Most importantly for me, SAL provides a great opportunity to conduct research to solve practical problems that the industry is facing and brings innovative solutions to the marketplace. This is very motivational for the daily work as a researcher because at the end you see the impact of your research in a real-world setting.
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You want to start your success story at SAL? Are you looking for a new challenge? If you want to actively shape the technologies of the future and enjoy working in an international team, then you've come to the right place.
