It is a warm afternoon at the end of August. The sun shines against the Värmland forest and the old soldier's camp rests safely in its now-white coloring. Here on the farm, Sanna Lander, a researcher at Cellfion, has her office three days a week. The other two she works in the lab at KTH, Stockholm, developing cellulose-based membranes for energy applications such as fuel cells and flow batteries.
But back to the farm. Just a few meters from the house is a stable and in the pasture outside, two horses graze, a Berber Arab and a Quarter Irish. It is precisely the horses that have been her direction many times in her life.
As a child, she competed in jumping, dressage and eventing. Mamma Maria, like Sanna and her sister, had a great interest in horses and the family lived near a stable where they could accommodate those who belonged to the family.
So the interest was always there?
-Yes, the horses have always meant a lot. When we were little, we also lived very close to nature and my younger siblings and I were always outside playing. It has certainly contributed to the fact that I opened my eyes early to nature, ecology, to how things are connected. I would become a veterinarian, I thought for a period...
Later, she chose the natural farming high school with a focus on field competition. Right after graduation, life took a direction towards France to learn more about horsemanship, a listening method of handling horses based on mutual respect.
-It was fantastic, but after a year abroad I began to long for home and my interest in mathematics and physics resurfaced. At home in Karlstad, there was the opportunity to both study and have a horse, so I started the physics program and had to learn mathematics at a high level and ride the hours I didn't spend studying.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she also began to think about the possibility of doing a doctorate, and when eventually a position as an industrial doctoral student with an emphasis on cellulose-based energy storage came up, she applied and got the job.
Supervisor Xavier Crispin was based in Norrköping and the idea was that she would work there a couple of days a week. But then the pandemic hit and Lander instead had to spend almost all the lab hours in BillerudKorsnäs' lab at Karlstad University.
-Yes, it was a challenge not to have our supervisors close at hand, but we got good at keeping in touch digitally instead. And actually, it suited me quite well. If I need to focus, I like to work by myself. Although I also enjoy having people around me.
Then what is important in life?
-Hard to say... But for me, it's a lot about being close to nature. To train the horses, to ride them. There is a lot that has guided my life choices if you look back... But then I also have a creative streak, which meets science and research. It's not routine work to work the way we do, and I like that.
Out in the yard, grass and other greenery flourish and in one of the sheds, a couple of lias are resting against the wall. Making hay the old-fashioned way is one of the chores Lander likes to do when time permits. Yes, overall benefiting the biological diversity on the land around the farm feels important.
-It always comes back to animals and nature, she says and tells us that as a child she could easily ask her father to look after the earthworms she had collected on the side of the football field before it was her turn to start playing.
When did you realize that sustainability was important?
-It was during junior high school that I started to open my eyes to how things were connected. Today, I wish the political debate would be less polarized and more organized in how we describe how things work. So that people understand and realize how widely different conditions we have in different parts of the world. The debate needs to be nuanced. I wish we were gifted with a little more humility.
And if you were to dream ahead?
-Then I want Cellfion to succeed. It's really something good we're doing there. But then I would also like to do more with the horses. To develop more in horsemanship and maybe even teach. There is so much there that we have to learn about the world. Big and small and in different ways.
Time is running out and it is time to round off with a little more work before the blessed time in the stable takes over within the best case – a long ride on horseback in the Värmland forest landscape.