All companies in the Simula Group are organized as limited companies, each of which is managed by a Director and overseen by a Board of Directors. The Simula Group is led by CEO Prof. Aslak Tveito.
The management group is an advisory body for the managing director, and strives to facilitate communication flow and maintain a single, unifying culture across all Simula companies and locations.
Members of Simula's management group
The management group is led by Prof. Aslak Tveito, CEO of Simula Research Laboratory, and includes the directors and deputy directors of Simula's companies as well as the CFO and other key functions selected by the CEO.
Managing Director
Prof. Aslak Tveito is the Managing Director (CEO) of Simula Research Laboratory and has had this position since 2002. In addition, Prof. Tveito is a professor in scientific computing at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. Prof. Tveito has also served as chief scientist at Sintef Applied Mathematics and is currently chair of the board of directors for the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (Norwegian: Forsvarets Forskningsinstitutt, FFI).
Deputy Managing Director (SRL)
Kyrre Lekve joined Simula in 2015. Lekve holds a Dr. scient in biology from the University of Oslo. Lekve has been a political advisor and deputy minister under Ministers Tora Aasland and Kristin Halvorsen in the Ministry of Research and Higher Education (2007-2012). Before joining Simula, Lekve worked as a deputy director at the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research, and Education (NIFU). Lekve has also been a political advisor in Abelia, part of the Norwegian Trade association, where he was responsible for policy development for private research and education and research institutes.
Chief Financial Officer
Monica Eriksen joined Simula in 2014. She holds a master's degree in business and economics, and she is a state-authorized public accountant. Both degrees are from the Norwegian School of Management (BI).
Director of Organizational Development
Kristin H. Alsvik joined Simula in 2017. Before taking on the role as Director of Organizational Development, Alsvik has worked as an administrative manager for SRL, SSRI and SimulaMet. Alsvik holds an MSc in Leadership and Organizational Psychology from the Norwegian School of Management (BI).
Director of the Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering
Prof. Olav Lysne has held various positions, including Section Director for Communication Systems, at Simula since its establishment in 2001. Lysne currently serves as the Director of Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering (SimulaMet). He is also a Professor at the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo. In addition to his research on resilient networks, Lysne has led two government commissions on digital vulnerability and lawful interception of internet traffic. He has also built the Center for Resilient Networks and Applications (CRNA), which is currently part of SimulaMet.
Deputy Director of the Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering
Marianne M. Sundet has been at Simula since 2007. Before taking on the role of Deputy Director of Simula Metropolitan, Sundet held various management positions at Simula, including the Director of Administration and the Director of Simula Innovation. Sundet holds a Master of philosophy from the University of Oslo.
Director of Simula Learning
Marianne Aasen joined Simula in 2017. Aasen holds a degree in political science (cand. polit.) from the University of Oslo. Before taking over as Director of Simula Learning, Aasen held the position of Director of the Simula School of Research and Innovation (SSRI). Aasen has been an elected member of the Norwegian Parliament for 12 years and was a member of the committee for Research, Education, and Religion for eight years.
Director of Simula Innovation
Ottar Hovind joined Simula in 2007. Hovind holds a degree in law (cand. jur) from the University of Oslo and has a master's degree in international commercial law from the London School of Economics. Before he joined Simula Innovation as director, he was involved in different projects at Simula through his law company JusIt. Hovind has worked with the law firm Ræder Advokatfirma.
Director of Simula UiB
Carlos Cid is the director of Simula UiB. He has been linked with Simula UiB since 2018, originally as a visiting research professor. He took on the role of director in May 2022. He is also adjunct professor at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Japan. Before joining Simula, Carlos was a professor at Royal Holloway University of London, where he spent over 18 years. He was the founding director of Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security. A mathematician by formation, Carlos is an experienced researcher and educator in cyber security, with main research interest and expertise in cryptography.
Deputy Director of Simula UiB
Mari Garaas Løchen has been at Simula since 2016 when she started as Head of Administration at Simula UiB. Before joining Simula, Løchen was leading the study section at the Department of Informatics at the University of Bergen. Løchen holds a Master’s Degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Bergen
Director of Simula Consulting
Valeriya Naumova joined Simula in 2014 as an EU Coordinator in Computational Biomedicine. Naumova has a PhD in applied mathematics and machine learning from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Before taking the role as the director of Simula Consulting, Naumova has held various positions within Simula, including the Department head of the Machine Intelligence Department at SimulaMet.
Director of Simula Academy
Rachel Thomas joined Simula in 2017. Thomas has a PhD in immunology from the Hannover Medical School in Germany and has worked in academic publishing as well as research administration at the University of Oslo. Before taking on the role as Director of the Simula Academy, Thomas held the position of Director of Corporate Development from 2018 - 2021.
Head of Administration
Maria Benterud has worked at Simula since 2016. As of 2018, Benterud is the Head of Administration in SRL. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis. Before joining Simula, Benterud had various administrative positions of an international character.
Research Director for Scientific Computing
Vegard Vinje first joined Simula as a summer intern in 2013 and later completed his Master's and PhD degrees in computational fluid mechanics at Simula and the University of Oslo. After the completion of his PhD in 2019, he continued working at Simula as a Postdoctoral fellow and later as a Research Scientist. In addition to his current management role, Vinje works as a researcher in the field of computational fluid mechanics for biomedical applications.
Research Director for Software Engineering and High-Performance Computing
Prof. Are Magnus Bruaset has been with Simula since 2003, after several years as a senior research scientist at SINTEF Applied Mathematics and as an entrepreneur in the software industry. At Simula, he has filled a wide range of management positions spanning research, education, and innovation. In particular, he has been responsible for developing Simula's most comprehensive industrial enterprise - a close to 15 years-long collaboration with Equinor, and for establishing the transatlantic PhD program SUURPh as a collaboration between Simula, University of Oslo, and University of California San Diego. Before his current position as Research Director for Software Engineering and High-Performance Computing, he led Simula's commercial subsidiary Kalkulo for two years until the successful acquisition by the American company Bluware. Prof. Bruaset is also an adjunct professor at the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo and leads the national HPC research infrastructure eX3.