Natalie Cheung is passionate about promoting career opportunities for all, with a particular focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths).
She currently works to deliver the Enterprise Adviser Network in London by working with schools, local authorities, employers and more.
Natalie Cheung started her career as a civil engineer working in the transportation industry for a global design consultancy. While still a student, she realised civil engineering and other STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) were not always considered by young women and girls. She led a team of student volunteers to run STEM events with robotics to inspire local children and teenagers to consider STEM in their future studies.
While working as an engineer and delivering railways projects, she continued her volunteering and enthused colleagues to volunteer in her role as Corporate Social Responsibility representative in the UK Headquarters.
Natalie is now focussed on using her engineering industry background and volunteer management skills to promote employer engagement in the education sector, with roles at STEM Learning and now at Reed In Partnership. She develops relationships with business volunteers to support their work with local school staff to provide valuable employer engagement for children and teenagers. With more exposure to different careers available, young people are can make informed decisions about their next steps and future careers.
Outside of work, Natalie is passionate about utilising her education knowledge and skills to boost industry engagement with schools. Her roles include:
• Women Engineering Society (WES) Council Member and Membership Committee
• WES London Cluster Committee where she has written blogs, chaired a panel on Sustainability, championed International Women In Engineering Day and support
• Institution of Civil Engineers Inspiration Panel Member
• Institution of Civil Engineers communication and video campaigns
Natalie also volunteers in other youth work relating to opportunities and international development. As an award-winning YMCA volunteer, Natalie was nominated to deliver a TED-style talk at the YMCA175 event in 2019 and chose the topic of Women In Engineering. She shared the volunteer work she has led in communities overseas to develop vocational skills and mathematical literacy to vulnerable young women. Her TED-Ed talk was to an audience of over 3000 leaders across the YMCA youth movement from over 100 countries – as well as further viewers on the live-stream. Through this talk Natalie reached a diverse and international non-STEM audience who were then inspired to consider engineering in their everyday lives and to consider science in their activism. With this TED-Ed talk, Natalie was able to connect to community groups where the role of engineers is not well known. She has also holds career talks to school children as a STEM Ambassador volunteer, the highlight being a Tomorrow’s Engineers Week 2019 “Big Assembly” on engineering careers live-streamed to 50,000 attendees.
Natalie is founder and host of podcast “Yellow Bee Pod” to highlight under-represented voices from diaspora communities with East and Southeast Asian descent. Through this platform, she advocates the community for topics including Anti-Asian violence, media representation and equality in the workplace. She gives a platform for members of the community from the worlds of arts, activism, healthcare and more.
Natalie also supports gender equality and those in education through her freelance work. Her most recent speaking engagement was for The University of Warwick’s panel on Intersectionality for International Women’s Day 2021. Natalie has also partnered with a University employability site to give talks on transferable employability skills during a speaking tour of 5 UK universities. She spoke about anti—racism for a social media campaign with indie beauty brand, Superfluid, and represents the British Asian community on podcasts. To support awareness of diversity in science, Natalie was the Team Captain in a University Challenge style quiz competition held at The Royal Institution where all the quiz questions were about scientists from minority groups.
Natalie is a passionate advocate for equality of opportunities in education and careers, with a wide variety of experience in inspiring students of all ages.