I wanted to write about my PhD for a long time, and have more than one draft for a post about it laying around in my git repository.
So I am now taking one of the old drafts, update the timestamp by two years, change the title from “Current state of my PhD” to the current one.
Somehow, I never wrote a lot about it here, as I never felt to have the right words or to not enjoy reading it, if things do not go out as planned.
First of all, I am currently pursuing my PhD (Dr. Ing.) in energy informatics with the topic “Comparative Simulation of Energy Market Designs” at the University of Oldenburg.
I started with this in October 2021 and I am currently on the finish line and eventually may have the final degree at the end of this year.
So four very insightful years.
Currently, I am about to finish my PhD, I have my thesis written and sent it to my supervisors.
This is a great relief for me, as I now have a few weeks to take a deep breath without the somewhat slight and constant pressure to think about my thesis.
After this final feedback loop, I will open the “Promotionsverfahren” to become a doctor of engineering.
This can take quite a while until the comittee did evaluate the dissertation after which I am allowed to hold my defense.
A 30 minute presentation about my research of the past four years, followed by questions and discussions about broader topics.
PhD program at OFFIS
The OFFIS in Oldenburg has a quite strict schedule of milestones throughout the PhD.
Though everything is still flexible in terms of the temporal schedule of these milestones.
Typically one starts with the Oberseminar 1 - OS1 - which consists of a research proposal with a presentation to discuss this - typically somewhere in the first year.
About the end of the second year, one can have the OS2 to present first results, estimates what kind of further research will be done and show of the current work.
Finally, the “internal colloquium” is held about half a year or a year from the final submission, just before writing everything into a single monograph.
I generally liked everything a lot and especially like the freedom I had during my research and my work at the FH Aachen.
My main research output is the contribution to the simulation framework assume, which is open source available on GitHub.
But even beyond, I hope to still have a small impact on energy research and market simulations for a cleaner and better future.
What now? - I will stay at the FH Aachen for a few years as a post-doc researcher and see how things will go beyond that.
Timeline
My general timeline of my PhD so far can be seen here:
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theme: dark
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gantt
dateFormat YYYY-MM-DD
title PhD Project Plan
tickInterval 6month
%%excludes weekends
%% (`excludes` accepts specific dates in YYYY-MM-DD format, days of the week ("sunday") or "weekends", but not the word "weekdays").
section Preparation
Find PhD topic :orga1, 2021-10-30,2022-01-01
Define objectives and research gap :orga2, after orga1, 2022-06-23
OS1 :milestone, os1, after orga2, 0d
click os1 href "https://datensch.eu/tools/os1/"
section Conception
Research :pr1, after os1, 12w
Market frameworks & simulations :pr2, after pr1 , 24w
Abstraction Concept Interfaces :abstraction, after pr2, 24w
concept development :prog1, after os1,40w
section Implementation
OS2 :milestone, os2, 2023-07-13, 0d
Iterative implementation :prog1, after pr1,80w
First prototype :proto1, after pr2,26w
click os2 href "https://datensch.eu/tools/os2/"
section Validation
First Framework Eval :vali0, after os2,40w
Second Framework Eval :vali1, after internal-colloq,40w
section Writing phase
Notes, progress, ideas :a1, after os1, 24w
Market models & simulation :write1, 2022-10-01, 20w
Comparability abstraction :20w
Sim approach :20w
Simulation results :40w
Finalization :40w
Internal colloq :milestone, internal-colloq, 2024-05-06, 0d
click internal-colloq href "https://datensch.eu/tools/ik/"
section Finalization
Submission to doctoral committee :milestone, final, 2025-06-01, 0d
Printing :after final, 6w
Defense :milestone, defense, 2025-09-01, 0d
click defense href "https://datensch.eu/tools/phd-defense/"
section Publication
Dach+ :dach2022_1, 2022-03-15, 2022-04-15
Doctoral Workshop feedback :milestone, dach2022_2,2022-06-06, 0d
DACH conference 2022 :milestone, dach2022_conf,2022-09-15, 2022-09-16
click dach2022_conf href "https://energy-informatics2022.org/"
Workshop ABM EMP :milestone, ws-abm-emp, 2023-02-01, 0d
OFFIS-Weeks :offis01, 2023-04-10, 12d
MDPI Submission :milestone, mdpi_paper, 2023-02-13, 14d
MDPI Revision :mdpi_submission, 2023-03-29, 2023-04-04
MDPI Publication :milestone, mdpi_pub, 2023-04-12, 4d
click mdpi_pub href "https://doi.org/10.3390/en16083380"
DACH+ 2023 Vienna :milestone, dach-wien, 2023-10-04, 3d
EIA2023 submission :eia2023_1, 2023-06-30, 2023-08-04
EIA2023 notification :milestone, eia2023_2,2023-08-15, 30d
EIA2023 Brazil :milestone, eia2023_conf,2023-12-06, 2023-12-08
click eia2023_conf href "https://www.energyinformatics.academy/eia-2023-conference"
OFFIS-Weeks :offis02, 2023-08-07, 9d
EEM2024 submission :eem_2024, 2024-01-01, 2024-01-28
EEM2024 notification :milestone, eem_2024_2,2024-03-17, 0d
EEM2024 Istanbul :milestone, eem_2024_3, 2024-06-10, 2d
Workshop ABM :milestone, ws-abm, 2024-03-20, 2d
EEM2025 submission :eem_2025, 2024-10-15, 2025-02-10
EEM2025 notification :milestone, eem_2025_2,2025-03-15, 0d
EEM2025 Lisbon :active, milestone, eem_2025_3, 2025-05-27, 2d