Claire Donoghue | 3M
Dr Claire Donoghue works the Corporate Research Lab at 3M, where she is researching disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence(AI) and computer vision to invent and engineer new products.
Prior to this she completed her PhD in computer vision and machine learning at Imperial College London. Computer vision is a discipline in which engineers teach a computer to “see” and interpret images, giving computers capabilities analogous to human vision.
Her first major innovation was during her PhD, where she created world leading computer vision algorithms to automatically diagnose arthritis of the knee from medical scans. For this academic work, Claire received 9 prizes for excellence in research and communication, a fellowship from the Software Sustainability Institute and was awarded two research grants to continue developing these algorithms for commercialisation. The most prestigious competition was SET for Britain (now STEM for Britain) and targeted the public communication of science, held at the Houses of Parliament, attended by MPs and awarded by the RAEng.
Claire co-founded and directed the London Chapter of the Geekettes. The London Geekettes goal is to champion and promote excellent women in technology, highlighting the achievements of inspirational female leaders. She conceived and hosted events, attended by 100-300 people, usually ‘sold’ out, collaborating with contacts in industry (Facebook, Google, Winton Capital and more) to fund the events and secure event space. One of the most memorable events was a hackathon for girls aged between 6 and 16, where they transformed creative ideas in to reality using Scratch and Python. Claire also supports collaborators’ STEM events by presenting her engineering work at Science Festivals and evening events.
Claire actively participates in technical communities outside of 3M. She regularly attends technical conferences, has been a keen participant in several hackathons and co-MC’ed London’s TechCrunch Disrupt Hack 2016 and Berlin TechCrunch Hack 2017, both attended by hundreds of software engineers.
Gemma Emmett | Bluewolf, an IBM Company
I graduated in 2005 with a degree in Business Information Systems from the University of Northampton.
I started off working in reporting roles, first for an exam board, then an airline, and finally with an international credit risk agency, where I was given administrative responsibility for their CRM system, a fairly young platform called Salesforce. After 18 months or so, I decided that I really loved working with this online system and decided to go consulting. Over the following 8 years, I worked on implementing Salesforce at a variety of companies large and small. As the sector grew, so did the complexity of the projects, and so did my level of experience and certification. Just as I was starting to become known as a trusted expert, I had my first interruption. A stage 3 breast cancer diagnosis, a week before my wedding and 4 months before my 30th birthday.
A year of treatment followed - months of chemotherapy, surgery, radiotherapy and hormone therapy - until I was told the immediate threat had passed. I carried on working throughout most of it, because it gave me a welcome distraction. But my soap opera life wasn't done with me yet. My marriage broke down, but my career went from strength to strength, culminating in arriving where I am now and taking a role as a solution architect to design Salesforce and integrations with other systems. Now that cancer had been dealt with, and in an effort to prove myself a credible practitioner, I decided to start strengthening my personal credentials through certification. 10 years of experience in Salesforce stood me in good stead to get from 5 certifications to 16 within a 3-month period. As I completed each exam, I started blogging tips and pointers from each experience, so that others could benefit from the insight as they also pursued their studies.
The only problem was, I noticed, there weren't many other women in my position who were tackling some of the more difficult exams. Where WAS everybody? Ladies Be Architects was born. This opened doors for me within IBM, within the thriving Salesforce community and started to give new experiences. Winning the coveted Golden Hoodie award. Winning a TechWomen 100 award. Speaking at Salesforce's annual conference in San Francisco four times. Having people all over the world read and share my blog posts. And then, last year, I had the news that we hadn't got all of the breast cancer out. It had come back. So, I had a few months off to recover from a double mastectomy with reconstruction before bouncing back.
Sotira Georgiou | Ramboll UK
My name is Sotira Georgiou and I am a Structural Engineer at Ramboll UK with five years of experience in the construction sector.
In 2013, I graduated with First-Class in B.Eng. (Hons) Civil Engineering and in 2014 I graduated with a Distinction in M.Sc. Civil Engineering both from the University of Southampton. I am a co-author of a paper in International Conference on Advanced Composites in Construction (ACIC2013).
For the past five years I have been a valued member of Ramboll Southampton Building Structures Team. I have a lead structural role within multidisciplinary teams, designing buildings in the UK and abroad and managing the delivery of the structural design. My experience involves conceptual and detailed design of new buildings (including multi-storey mixed use, retail and offices), refurbishment of existing structures, structural surveys and seismic design. I will be sitting the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Chartered Professional Review in April 2019.
I am the Lead of Ramboll UK STEM Network as part of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and a passionate and enthusiastic STEM Ambassador with an active role of inspiring the younger generation on the importance of STEM subjects.
Mariapia Angelino | WSP
Mariapia Angelino is a civil and forensic engineer who has built an international reputation as an expert in standards for the construction industry.
She leads strategic consultancy works in the UK related to standards and policy development activities, and has been a key advisor to government departments and public clients including Highways England, National Grid and HS2.
She has shaped the future of international design standards. Heavily involved with the activities of CEN/TC 250 (the European committee responsible for the Eurocodes, structural and geotechnical design standards used worldwide), Mariapia helped build international consensus and unanimous agreement on the strategy to enhance the usability of the second generation of the Eurocodes. She is currently implementing the strategy as the sole appointed Technical Reviewer in Europe, and is enhancing the quality of documents used by over 500,000 engineers in Europe alone, with expecting savings of hundreds of millions of euros in the European construction market.
Mariapia holds two engineering degrees and an EngD. Over the last six years, she has combined her award-winning doctorate research with work on WSP projects. She led strategic consultancy work for Highways England that redeveloped over 350 standards applicable to the design, maintenance and operation of the UK strategic road network. With an expected saving of over £50m per year, this project will have a huge positive impact on everyone engaged in the design, maintenance and operation of motorways and trunk roads across UK for decades.
In 2018 alone, Mariapia passed the viva for the doctorate, attained her Chartership status through the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE), was shortlisted as one of the potential candidates for the Karen Burt Award by the ICE, was shortlisted Best Consultant at the European Women in Construction and Engineering Awards, and got a promotion to the role of Principal Engineer in WSP.
She invests significant time and energy in standards and policy development activities in the UK and globally, promoting her research through papers and at conferences. She is passionate about motivating and guiding students as a teaching assistant in Structural Engineering at the University of Bristol. She mentors colleagues and client staff through career transitions and progressions, and helps them build confidence in their skills and capabilities. Her next achievement will be to become mum in May, and she is really looking forward to it.
Frida Nzaba | Rolls-Royce Plc
If someone told me 10 years ago I would be working for Rolls Royce, I would have asked them, why would I want to work in a dirty garage fixing expensive cars?
In year 10 I realised I genuinely loved engineering. I enjoyed learning about the different machining processes such as turning and milling and the fact that I was able to apply some of these techniques to basically manufacture my coursework. I remember engineering was one of the subjects I always looked forward to because it was fun, practical and contained maths and physics that actually made sense to me. Through my passion and hard work in engineering I won Outstanding BTEC Engineering Student in 2013.
In year 11, my engineering teacher advertised the amazing apprenticeships available, which were rarely encouraged in my school.
Initially, an apprenticeship was not an option for my family, it was in my parents’ interest that I follow the ‘traditional route’ to higher education. Eventually after months of research and convincing my family, I decided to undertake an apprenticeship with Rolls-Royce in 2013.
I completed my apprenticeship in 2016 and secured my first job in Rolls-Royce Hucknall as the Trent 700 component owner and a computer aided process planner (CAPP) alongside studying for my Mechanical Engineering Degree; I graduated in 2017.
I am now working as a Repair Capability Manufacturing Engineer in Rolls-Royce Engine Overhaul Services, based in Derby. This role consists of developing and implementing methods that can be used to repair various components from a jet engine. The main thing I enjoy is the fact that I can go into work and see various jet engines being stripped and assembled ready to dispatch to the customer; this is just simply mind blowing. Through this role I am gaining a real understanding of Rolls-Royce as a business and its strategy, I believe to be a well-rounded engineer to be able to make decisions you must understand the business and the aftersales market, I purposely positioned myself in this role as it is a stepping stone in my career to eventually become a Manufacturing Engineering Executive in Rolls-Royce as you need broader understanding of the business as a whole.
Sophie Paveling | Coca Cola European Partners
I have recently finished my Electrical and Mechanical Apprenticeship in July 2018.
I am currently completing my HND in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. I will be starting another Degree in September 2019, this is a 'Charted Degree in Supply Chain Management'.
I have been a Multi-Skilled Shift Technician since July 2018 that attends to breakdowns on the production line alongside performing improvement projects.
I have designed and implemented many projects on my site, saving a vast amount of water, energy and production costs. Some projects include:
- Layer Pad Alarming System (saving £16,000 Production costs every 12hours).
- Automatic Lubrication System (200,000 Litres Water reduction).
- Lubrication Timing and proceeding conveyor control (800,000 Litres Water Reduction).
- Combining belt reseting and alarming system (H&S Project)
- Implementation of new palletisation formats.
- Plus many more.
Since I started my apprenticeship and job at CCEP(5 years ago) I have and still am attendeding various schools, career days and conferences to give presentations, activities and panel talks expressing my story and expanding the knowledge of apprenticeships and the success of women in engineering.
Sharon Jones | Barclays Eagle Labs
As the first engineer in Barclays Eagle Labs, I am part of an initiative within the High Street bank focused on providing communities with access to digital fabrication and the digital skills to thrive.
After 19 years in primary education, in a range of roles from classteacher through to Head leading a school from underperforming to improved, I was ready for new challenges and to regain my own enthusiasm for learning.
I joined Barclays on a temporary contract. I was immediately taken with the opportunities to learn new things and the digital culture across the global business. Moving into a permanent subject matter expert role, I was able to influence improving processes and became involved in facilitating training for colleagues. Alongside my day job in customer services I became a volunteer Digital Eagle and took my first steps in learning to code, building my first app 9 months later, which was used by 1600 colleagues. This involvement led to a secondment to Strategic Transformation, a small team committed to changing the face of Personal and Corporate Banking. I was responsible for leveraging connections in the community to raise awareness of Eagle Labs, and providing a programme of events to engage potential clients.
The labs network has flourished from the two launched in December 2015 to twenty-three sites. Following basic maker training in Fab Lab London, I have grown into a lab engineer; confident in facilitating and supporting individuals and businesses in product development and rapid prototyping. With a commitment to digital empowerment I host maker and innovation workshops with local schools, colleges and youth groups, aiming to inspire our next generation of engineers. The labs offering is constantly evolving and I am relishing the opportunity to influence this. As an established member of the team I am able to offer my expertise to newer sites, sharing best practise and engineering solutions to create everything our clients can imagine. Most recently this has involved bringing the local ecosystem together to explore Industry4.0, with a focus on IoT.
Hannah Cameron | Barclays Eagle Labs
I work as engineering support for anyone to build almost anything, and I love my job!
I am passionate about helping people and in particular on closing the gap between what people think they can't do and actually what they can do with a bit of support.
I started out as a Landscape Architect and worked in an architecture office for 3 years before realising that I wanted to build projects and get hands on with design work. I went to a local makerspace and discovered 3D printers, since then I've never looked back! The way I was made to feel welcome there has had a huge impact on my work and in order to pass that feeling on, I have volunteered my time to help in any makerspace I step into. Fast forward a few years and now I run a makerspace for Barclays Eagle Labs.
In my spare time I regularly perform at events and festivals, giving talks or presentations usually about 3D printing. Last year I performed my own 3D printing comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival! A few years ago, myself and a friend set up a series of events at makerspaces called 'WeMake' which focused on connecting them up as a network and supporting not solely, but particularly, women in tech. I love introducing people to technology and showing them how accessible it can be, and also that we shouldn't be afraid to fail.
Lorna Bennet | Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult
Lorna Bennet is a Mechanical Engineer for the Operational Performance team at the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, the UK’s leading technology, innovation and research centre for offshore renewable energy.
She works with academics, researchers, SMEs, technology developers, manufacturers and operators to drive improvements in the operation and maintenance of offshore renewable energy assets through developing new technologies, procedures and advancing research. Working in collaboration to reduce the cost of offshore renewable energy, transforming industry and delivering UK economic benefit.
Since graduating with an honour’s degree in Product Design Engineering from the University of Glasgow in 2011, Lorna has had a varied career showing the diversity and transferable skills engineering offers. Starting in the drafting office of a structural engineering company, before being offered her first job as a Mechanical Design Engineer designing offshore lifting and handling systems. This was an intense role but provided a unique opportunity to travel the world. In 2013 she accepted a position with Pelamis Wave Power working at the cutting edge of wave power development. Moving to the aerospace industry in 2015 as a Development Engineer working to improve aeroplane engines, before finding her way back to the renewable energy industry with the ORE Catapult in June 2016.
In 2018 Lorna was given responsibility for the engineering intern recruitment in the Glasgow office and was able to almost double the number of interns by working with various charities and organisations. She has driven the development of a company STEM policy and has coordinated engagement in Glasgowand Hull. She has promoted STEM activities and cultivated an engagement strategy in collaboration with schools, local and national charities and organisations. As an enthusiastic STEM ambassador for nearly 10 years, promoting engineering and science to children, parents and teachers through a variety of projects and events.
In March 2018 she was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious Award to set up a pilot STEM engagement strategy with local primary schools in Glasgow. She has since recruited 18 new STEM Ambassadors to run the programme and developed a series of renewable energy and sustainability-related lesson plans. This dedication to promoting STEM lead to Lorna receiving the prestigious Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Young Woman Engineer of the Year Women’s Engineering Society (WES) Prize in December 2018. This is a significant honour as she is the Ambassador for WES during their centenary in 2019, and will play a key role in the 100th anniversary celebrations.
Rain Irshad | STFC RAL Space
I always knew I wanted to work in space. When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut and wrote to NASA. They told me what I needed to do and I started working towards those goals.
I got a Flying Scholarship with the RAF so that I could learn to fly planes. I wrote to Universities to get work experience with research groups. Eventually, I got a place at Oxford University to read Physics.
At University, I was diagnosed with endometriosis and realised I wasn't going into space. Instead I did a Master's in Instrumentation Systems at UCL where I worked on a concept for an adaptive optics x-ray space telescope and I realised that I could still explore space by sending instruments up there. I did a doctorate in Atmospheric Physics at Oxford where I learned about hardware and software development for measuring atmospheric aerosols and was able to gather data that would improve the integrity of satellite measurements from space. After that, I spent four years as a Post-Doctoral Researcher working with the Planetary Group at Oxford, and teaching in my spare time. There, I worked on everything from lab-based experiments to make the kinds of gases you find on Jupiter, to seismometers for measuring Marsquakes. I designed and patented an instrument for measuring atmospheric temperatures and that became my first instrument in space.
Eventually, I moved to RAL Space to work as a Systems Engineer and began looking at larger projects. I was the Lead Systems Engineer on a proposal for a mission measuring Exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) which involved coordinating organisations across 13 different countries. I led a project to look at the probability of life surviving on Phobos and managed a project to develop a Highly Miniaturised Radiation Monitor for space, as well as working on other projects. I continued to work on the Martian seismometer instrument which landed on Mars in 2018 as part of NASA's InSight mission.
In 2015 I took on the role of Autonomous Systems Lead at RAL Space and managed a small team working on robotics for testing space rovers and navigation software. I realised that this technology could be adapted for other applications. After travelling to Cambodia on holiday, I realised that there was still a major problem with landmines across the globe and proposed a system for autonomous landmine sensing using our robotic technology in South East Asia. I was awarded funding through the Global Challenges Research Fund to develop this work and am currently working with Fardoulis Robotics, Buckingham University and the Mines Advisory Group to develop a solution.
On the space side, I'm working with the UK and European Space Agencies on establishing facilities such as the Harwell Robotics and Autonomy Facility as well as Sample Curation Facilities to support a future Mars Sample Return Programme.
I am also a STEM ambassador and act as a mentor for young men and women in STEM. I give talks to schools and University students and like to be involved in Outreach programmes when I have time.