M.Sc in Aeronautics & Astronautics, William E. Boeing department and Aeronautics & Astronautics, University of Washington

My name is Kasper Janehag, born and raised in Örby, a small village in the southern province of Västra Götaland, Sweden. Unlike many others, I’ve had a clear vision of my career path for the majority of my life. Growing up with a race mechanic as father, my youth was characterized by trips to different grand prix around the world. Recurrent at these events was my fascination for racing engineers and their constant tweaking of car settings. By the time, I didn’t know exactly what these people were doing but I knew I wanted to work with it.

After graduating from high school, it was time to travel the world to “get to know yourself” and “get a perspective on existence”. This outermost complex task, I dealt with by intense travel to over twenty countries around the world, in a total of four continents. Foreign cultures, locations and people vastly contributed to creating a perspective of existence; if I got to know myself remains unanswered.

The intense traveling eventually turned into light restlessness, which made me move on to the Mechanical Engineering program at Chalmers University of Technology. After graduating with an outstanding curriculum and obtained scholarship funds, I decided to pursue a M.Sc.-degree at William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics at University of Washington, Seattle USA. The program had a strong focus in applied math but allocated a lot of time at Boeings factories, studying factory flows, aero structures and maintenance. After a while the scholarship funding ran out, which led me to fund the last part of my studies through a teaching assistant position in Introductory Engineering Statics. Lecturing in front of 120 students, in a foreign language, was a challenging but a truly joyful experience.

Graduation from University of Washington led to a research position at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. At NASA, I worked with aerodynamic analyses of rotors in small Autonomous Aerial Systems (sUAS), in layman’s terms called drones. In addition to the unbelievable opportunity to experience world class research, it was also very interesting to be a part of the unique business culture of Silicon Valley.

Besides my passion for traveling, I spend a lot of my spare time on various nerdy activities. Lately, this have included Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep learning-algorithms, an interest I hope to be able to apply during my daily work during the graduate program. An application for GKN Aerospace’s Graduate Program was my obvious choice, since it offers possibilities to complement my technical background with broader disciplines such as leadership and strategy. With amazing products, competent people and a wide organization, I look forward to 18 months of inspiring meetings, fun visits and varying tasks.