Jelena Lukic is the Head of laboratory for electrical insulation testing at the Nikola Tesla Electrotechnical Institute, Belgrade (Serbia). She has a PhD in chemical engineering and an illustrative career in transformer diagnostics particularly in paper-oil insulation treatment, phenomenon and removal of corrosive sulphur and other refining techniques. She is actively involved in various CIGRE working committees and currently the convener of CIGRE working group D1.76. She was previously involved with IEC for the creation and revision of standards related to the oil and paper. She has worked on corrosive sulphur phenomena and was the convener of CIRE A240 for copper sulphide long term mitigation.  Read along for her DeepBrains interview with us!

Let’s start the interview!

Q. Tell us about yourself

Q. What inspired you to join this sector?

Q. Can you elaborate why?

Jelena: They are connected by not really the same, really. In fact, proper or good maintenance will have the opportunity to the equipment capacity. Take a step back and understand that we have a condition-based and a risk-based maintenance. Those are different approaches, definitely. They are not equal and have their importance but not on the equal scale if you look at the equipment application and importance of the unit. The key thing is good diagnostics and discovering the root cause of eventual and potential risks. And this risk-based maintenance is leading directly to reliability. If this is not said correctly, then maintenance can be obsolete or performed improperly. For example, in case of sulphur corrosion, if you have a good diagnostic tool, approach and expertise then you find the root cause of the problem. But if you don’t discover the real reason then mitigation action or maintenance can be completely wrong!

Q. What is the best piece of advice you would give to a junior professional to succeed in your sector?

Q. What is something nobody tells you, but you wish you knew earlier?

Jelena: Things change very much very fast. People have to explore more on interdisciplinary work and soft skills to open their minds.

Q. Can you recommend any books or media?

Jelena: IEEE and CIGRE guides and brochures are a good starting point with elaborate reference lists and good summary on various topics.

Nikola Tesla Electrotechnical Institute is the only organization founded by Nikola Tesla in 1936 while he was alive and living in New York. We are proud to be his successors and try to maintain the level of expertise in our institute, both in electrical engineering (of course) and chemical engineering.

Dr. Jelena Lukic


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