Researcher of the Month – Carina Freitas

Siemens PLM Software is a thriving environment for research engineers, allowing them to apply their talent and increase their knowledge so that they can further contribute to the development of new, successful products. Discover what being at Siemens means for Carina Freitas.

How did you end up at Siemens?

In 2012, I started at Siemens (at that time, LMS) as a customer services engineer in test division. I discovered the company LMS through LinkedIn and, since I was passionate about the topic noise and vibrations, I decided to send a spontaneous application.

What is your project about?

One of the main goals of my research is to investigate sensing technologies and advanced signal processing methods for automated detection and diagnosis of faults in industrial condition monitoring applications.

Why did you choose this area?

Back in the days, this was not a very easy decision since I am interested in many topics. My passion for mathematics and my problem-solving mind led my math’s teacher to suggest that I should probably follow a career in engineering. That was the moment I started to look into it and happily decided to follow her advice.

What is the craziest thing you have ever done as an engineer?

Well, this actually happened not long ago during a measurement campaign for my current project. While in the industrial field, one of our systems stopped working and I had to troubleshoot the hardware. The problem was that the only way to access it was by climbing a vertical stair of around 10 meters. Since I am slightly scared of heights, this task involved a “deep breath” at the beginning and “don’t look down” along the way.

What is the best thing about your research projects?

The fact that the project is industry-oriented and gives us the chance to deal with a different type of environment than the one I was used to. I am also very pleased with the fact that me and my colleagues work towards improving our current solutions to help people during the execution of their work.

What is the worst thing?

For this specific project, it is important to have access to different databases to validate our algorithms. Since we are dealing with alternative technologies and normally this data is not available on public websites, we have to do a lot of measurement campaigns. Also, sometimes it is not so easy to find the right structure to conduct these measurements.

Do you think your work will really make a difference?

This is actually one of my main ambitions at work. What I like the most in research is that I get the possibility to improve the currently available solutions and thus make a difference in the daily life of our customers. Since the project is still under execution and we are still at the middle of the timeline… let’s say that I wish that it will make a difference (smily face).

25 years from now, there will be: 

For sure a lot of changes. Looking at the industry 4.0, I believe that there will be deep changes in the tasks allocated to people. I believe that the repetitive tasks will be done in automated manner and there will be a creation of different type of jobs to answer to these changes.

What would you do differently, if you could?

Nothing! I believe that to be the person I am today and have the vision of things that I have today, it was essential for me to go through all the decisions I took. Of course, not all my decisions brought me happiness but they certainly brought life lessons that are equally or even more important than the “wins”.

If you weren’t an engineer, what would you be?

I would be an economist. In high school I decided to follow the studies of economy and management but after that I decided to enroll for a degree in engineering. But still to this day, I find this domain equally interesting and I go through the economic section of the newspapers all the time to check the current situation of the markets.

Will engineering change the world?

Well, it will definitely play an important role in the world but in my opinion, the interaction between different domains will be the main reason for a world change.