Scott Anderson from Hamelin
is studying for a doctorate degree at the Institute of Chemical and Electrochemical Process Engineering
The triathlete
World champion, European champion, Scottish champion – Scott Anderson already has about half a dozen triathlon titles under his belt. Despite all those successes and the work they entail, Scott is pursuing a doctorate degree at the same time, at the Institute of Chemical and Electrochemical Process Engineering at TU Clausthal.
Sport takes Scott all over the place
It was just short of nine years ago that Scott discovered his love of triathlon. This very intense sport involves switching as quickly as possible between swimming, cycling, and running. His parents were triathletes before he was, but Scott, for a long time, could not get excited about the sport. So he tried out different things, like soccer. “But that was a complete catastrophe,” Scott says, laughing. Next to the “normal” triathlon, the young doctorate student has now discovered cross triathlon. “I find mountain biking and off-road running much more interesting than running along the road,” he explains. Since starting his doctorate program under Professor Thomas Turek and his job as a research assistant, he has been even more committed to his sport and is well on the way to getting a professional license. He’s training hard: Working with his coach, he dedicates a total of 15 to 20 hours to training per week. Starting next year, Scott will also be in the line-up of his former home club, ESV Hameln.
The intense training has been paying off. In Spain this year, Scott managed to become triathlon world champion. Only 25, he has already done quite a bit of traveling. Apart from Spain, triathlon competitions have taken him to Switzerland, Romania – and Scotland, where the young triathlete won the Scottish championship in 2019. Where did he get the idea of competing in Scotland? That was in part thanks to his father, who is originally from Scotland and ended up staying in Germany after being stationed here as a British serviceman in the 1980s. Scott used the trip to Scotland to visit his extended family and take a little roadtrip along the coast.
He values the good student-teacher ratio at TU Clausthal
Alongside his sport, Scott works as a research assistant at the Institute of Chemical and Electrochemical Process Engineering. This means devoting himself to teaching and research in the field of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and flow simulation. He also runs experiments in heterogeneous catalysis to find out, for example, how catalysts behave. This research makes it possible to establish, using models, how industrial reactors will respond to a vast range of factors and thereby optimize their operation.
In the three years that Scott has already spent at TU Clausthal, he has come to prize the institute’s good student-teacher ratio. “If I have a question, I can just knock on the next door along and ask for advice,” the 25‑year-old says. Although he enjoys academic work and likes being in Clausthal, he wants to work in industry as a process engineer once he has his doctorate. “When you’ve got really big production facilities, it’s like an adventure playground,” explains Scott, whose previous studies for a dual program in chemical engineering gave him the chance to gain experience at the chemicals firm Bayer and the university of applied sciences in Krefeld. He couldn’t do his dual master’s in Krefeld, so he had to switch universities. He chose TU Clausthal because the Harz institution is excellent for engineering subjects in particular and because the surrounding landscape has so much to offer.
Next goal: World Cross Triathlon Championship
When Scott is at the Institute of Chemical and Electrochemical Process Engineering and not, for a change, researching and experimenting in the lab, he hangs out in the institute’s kitchenette. As he puts so much time into work and training, there’s not much left for other things. But Scott likes to nonetheless take the time for a cup of coffee and a chat with his colleagues. He even has a portafilter coffee machine at home, with which he is trying to produce the best possible espresso. Thus invigorated, the ambitious sportsman has his sights on the next big goal: His next objective is to compete in the World Cross Triathlon Championship in Maui, Hawaii.