Chapter 17: Professor Lene Oddershede

Extract:

Although the development and use of advanced technologies are central to Lene Oddershede’s work, she believes that research does not need to be technically advanced to be excellent.

“It can easily be quite simple. Sometimes the simplest is almost the most beautiful. And research doesn’t have to have anything to do with biomechanics or optical tweezers for me to think it’s great. But it must be innovative, and it must reveal a new way of thinking, a new way of seeing a context.
Excellent research paves the way for a new field or new thoughts, but it’s not always easy to see the potential of a research idea or result. The value of a research result is often judged on whether it is published in major journals, but I don’t think that’s necessarily correct. Often, it’s not until ten years later that you understand the real meaning of a job.”

Oddershede likes to ask big questions and try to solve big problems. And from her point of view, such work might as well be done through winding and creative paths, which also sometimes involve the risk that the paths will go nowhere. She has learned that in asking the big questions you must accept that you don’t always come up with the right answers.

You can read the full portrait of Professor Lene Oddershede by downloading the chapter below. (In Danish)