Meet Sampsa Laakso, assistant professor of manufacturing processes and systems

'My academic career has taken me from my birthplace in Finnish Lapland, Rovaniemi, to Helsinki and around the world. I spent more than a decade studying and working in Aalto University and one of its predecessors, Helsinki University of Technology. I started my mechanical engineering studies here in 2004 and graduated in 2009. Shortly thereafter, in 2010, I started my doctoral studies and defended my dissertation in 2015. During my doctoral studies I also spent 6 months in RWTH Aachen University in Germany as a visiting scholar. After completing my doctorate, I went to Sweden in 2016 to join Lund University as a postdoctoral researcher, where I remained until 2018. I briefly came back to Aalto between 2018 and 2019 to finish any remaining projects before starting a position as a lecturer at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2019.

'After two years in Gothenburg, I took a position of assistant professor in University of Turku. I had a once-in-a-career opportunity to start a new BSc programme in mechanical engineering in the newly founded Faculty of Technology. With the programme in Turku up and running and the initial challenges fixed, I was free to return to Otaniemi.

'I started here last September as an assistant professor of manufacturing processes and systems. I have built my whole career in the field of manufacturing engineering. I have extensive teaching experience in different manufacturing processes, including machining, forming, and casting. In addition to teaching, I have established myself as a researcher in the field of metal cutting and digital manufacturing, although nowadays I prefer to use a term virtual manufacturing to avoid confusion with additive manufacturing. 

'My current research focus is simulating material defects caused by manufacturing processes, and their influence on product service life and sustainability. For future research, I am planning to develop more holistic simulation models to predict the product quality, emissions, and efficiency of manufacturing processes. The plans will further my expertise in FEM and machine learning but also cover completely new topics, such as molecular dynamics simulations, crystal plasticity modelling, quantum computing and virtual and augmented reality. 

'In addition to establishing world class research in manufacturing, I intend to have strong collaboration with the domestic industry. After all, if you want to be the best in the world, you first must be the best in Finland.'