Our mentors take on a central role in providing our team with knowledge and experience by sharing generously, openly and altruistically from their own experiences and careers. At Njord we will always push for you to be able to learn from the best while expanding your network.
Jan Onarheim has a MSc (cand.real) from 1978 from University of Bergen. He has worked for University of Bergen, NUI/NUTEC, Statoil (Equinor), Interconsult, SIVA and The Norwegian Research Council. He has been cofounder and CEO of Leksvik Industriell Vekst and Idletechs. He was the initiator of Spark NTNU, a low-treshold support organization for students that want to commersialize own ideas and FRAM (Students innovation centre). He is presently Innovation manager at the Department of engineering cybernetics, and deputy head for innovation at the same department. He was the initiator of Njord.
Morten Breivik has a MSc degree (2003) and a PhD degree (2010) in engineering cybernetics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. He has experience from NTNU as a head of department (2013-2021), researcher, teacher, supervisor and entrepreneur, at a leading international level in engineering cybernetics. He also has industrial experience as principal engineer and R&D manager from Kongsberg Maritime, which is an internationally leading company in the maritime industry. In 2019, he was one of the co-founders of the company Zeabuz, which focuses on autonomous urban passenger ferries. He is currently a member of the Norwegian Board of Technology, and has previously been a member of the expert group on enabling technologies for the Norwegian Digital21 strategy. Together with Jan Onarheim, he was one of the initiators of Njord.
Ole Andreas Alsos has a MSc and a PhD in Computer Science (interaction design) from NTNU. He is a specialist in Human-Computer Interaction and has worked for several years in the IT industry as a consultant, interaction designer, IT specialist, and project manager. He was previously Head of the Department of Design (2017-2021). Currently, he is an associate professor in interaction design and is doing research on control rooms for monitoring and control of autonomous ships. He has also been part of several startups.
Tom Arne Pedersen has a MSc (2002) and PhD (2009) in Marine Technology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). He has worked for Marine Cybernetics since 2008, holding positions as senior project engineer, R&D Manager Drilling Systems and Product Manager Drilling Systems. Marine Cybernetics was acquired by DNV GL in 2014 and Tom Arne Pedersen currently holds the position as Principle Researcher in DNV GL Group Technology and Research, working on a testing framework for autonomous navigation systems.
Dr. Stephanie Kemna is a Software Engineer and Project Manager at Maritime Robotics. She obtained BSc and MSc degrees in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Groningen (2008), and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southern California (2018), focusing on multi-robot strategies for adaptive informative sampling using autonomous underwater vehicles. From 2009-2012, she worked at the NATO STO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation. She has over 10 years of experience developing adaptive behaviors, autonomy and mission planning for aquatic robots, including AUVs and ASVs.
Frode Halvorsen has a master's degree in strategy and business development from NTNU, in addition to a lector degree in natural sciences. Since March 2020 he has been the Cluster Manager for Ocean Autonomy Cluster situated in Trondheim. Frode has previously been working several years at NTNU with entrepreneurship education and innovation projects between industry and students. He has also been a part of several startups.
Øyvind holds a MSc and PhD from NTNU, received in 2002 and 2006 respectively. In 2006 he joined Marine Cybernetics, where he worked with developing technology and services for Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) testing of control systems in the maritime and offshore industries, holding positions as senior engineer, product manager, CTO, COO and CEO over a 10-year period. Marine Cybernetics was acquired by DNV GL in 2014, after which he held positions as Head of Department for Marine Cybernetics within Offshore Classification and Maritime Advisory. From 2017 to 2020 he was Program Director for Digital Assurance within DNV GL Group Technology and Research, where he worked with both the use of and the assurance of digital technologies and their applications. Since August 2020 Øyvind has been the COO and co-founder of Zeabuz, developing small, electric, autonomous ferries for urban waterways. Key research interests include autonomous systems, digital twins, modeling and simulation, and assurance of complex, digital assets.
Edmund Førland Brekke has an MSc (2005) in Industrial Mathematics and a PhD (2010) in Engineering Cybernetics, both from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). From 2010 to 2014, he was with the Acoustic Research Laboratory (ARL), NUS, Singapore, as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. In 2014, he rejoined NTNU and the Department of Engineering Cybernetics as an Associate Professor in sensor fusion. This position was funded as gift professorship by DNV during 2014–2019 through the Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Marine Systems and Operation (AMOS). He has been a Project Manager of the knowledge-building project Sensor fusion and collision avoidance for autonomous ships (Autosea, 2015–2019), and is currently a Project Manager of the knowledge-building project Autonomous ships, intentions, and situational awareness (Autosit, 2019–2023), as well as a Key Scientist in the Autoferry project, which is focused on autonomous pedestrian ferries. His research interests include the area of sensor fusion and situational awareness, with a particular focus on multitarget tracking.
Thomas Skarshaug has a MSc in informatics from NTNU. He has been working on simulator development using game engines to enable realistic and performant simulation of perception sensors. He currently works in Zeabuz where his role is to help develop their internal test system and simulators for verification and testing of the Zeabuz autonomy system.
Professor Roger Skjetne received his MSc degree in 2000 from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and his PhD degree in 2005 from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) on control engineering. He holds an Exxon Mobil prize for his PhD thesis at NTNU. Prior to his studies, he worked as a certified electrician for Aker Elektro AS on numerous oil installations for the North Sea, and in 2004-2009 he was employed in Marine Cybernetics AS, working on Hardware-In-the-Loop simulation for verification of marine control systems. From August 2009 he has held the Kongsberg Maritime chair of Professor in Marine Control Engineering at the Department of Marine Technology at NTNU. In 2017-2018, he was a visiting research scholar at the Center for Control, Dynamical-systems and Computation at the University of California at Santa Barbara. His research interests are within autonomous ship control systems, dynamic positioning of marine vessels, control of shipboard hybrid-electric power systems, Arctic station-keeping and Ice Management systems, and nonlinear and adaptive motion control of marine vessels in general.