In 2007, 32 year-old Yuliia Yamnenko became one of the youngest Doctor of Engineering Science. In 2015 she became the Head of the Department of Industrial Electronics of the Faculty of Electronics (FE), which, as is generally known, is also quite rare for a young female technician. Our editors have chosen her among the famous women of our university, which they decided to communicate with in the holiday issue.

- Dear Yuliia, our newspaper wrote about you in 2008. We know that since then you have achieved a lot. Please tell our readers about what has changed in your professional life, about your achievements.

- In 2010, a four-people group with me as its member, was awarded the President of Ukraine Young Scientists Prize for research work “Theory and means of constructing energy-efficient local objects power management”. I take this award as a recognition of what I do. I have prepared three graduate students who successfully defended their thesis. We conduct active international work. Within academic exchanges we contact the universities in Poland (Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, University of Western technology, etc.). Once in two years we hold international conferences in which I participate as an organizer and contributor. One of them was organized under the auspices of the International Society of IEEE. In addition, each year the Faculty holds the conference of young scientists to give them a chance practice. Methodical work was conducted at the national level.

- Which place in your activity is taken by the work with students?

- I first mentioned the achievements and some regulated aspects of my activity, but most of the time I, of course, spend communicating with students. I teach them as well as myself. I often choose the most talented among them, in my opinion, to help them prepare and submit grant applications (which they may not even know). By the way, very often I really learn from  some students who are more aware of certain nuances of our profession or have better skills due to the working experience in some companies.

Recently, one of my former students, Bogdan Suchyk, along with two other authors has won the world famous “Startups Competition” in the US (our newspaper wrote about this in detail in №5 on February 23 - Ed.). I  invited Bohdan to the Department room where he gave an interesting lecture, the students heard about his path in science and business. I felt proud of my former student.

  1. Will you mention any failures or shortcomings?

- I try to take positively all the shortcomings, which, of course, have been, are and will always be. That is not to upset, not to sprinkle ashes upon my head and consider the shortcomings as another task for the future to solve a specific problem.

- Tell us about your relationship to the ongoing reforms in higher education?

- I am part of the Ministerial Subcommittee on the Standards of Higher Education. The Commission operates under the reforms introduced, and we aspire to European and world standards of education. However, I am opposed to discarding everything that was worked out by the Soviet system. It undoubtedly had its advantages. Changes are needed and I am very happy that they are coming. Yes, maybe not as fast as we would like them to be, but I am an optimist and believe that in the coming years, we will start to feel the effect of the imposed reforms.

One of the main problems that must be addressed is establishing a close link between the specialists training and the requirements of industry, business and future employers for our specialists. Our university has a potential for this: we can, for example, organize the undergraduate work and special programs according to the requirements of the market. And we have a good example - the activity of our industrial park. We could model the full cycle from scientific research to practical implementation with the representative of our regular employers.

- Do you have any hobbies apart from your professional activity?

- My main hobby is my children. My daughter has grown up and has her own family. One son is already in the 8th grade, the second son is 4 years old. If I have a spare hour I go to the pool, on weekends I like to go to the theater. I have recently learned of of Dante’s sonnets with my elder son (it is a part of the curriculum), reread “Kaidasheva simiia” by Nechuy-Levytskyi (just wanted to). My favorite book is “The Master and Margarita” by Bulgakov.

- On the eve of International Women's Day we wish you good health. prosperity, good mood and new achievements.

Interviewer - V. Shkolnyi