This year’s women in engineering awards showcase the diverse range of skills and talent displayed by female engineers – from building suspension bridges and overseeing multimillion-pound technology projects to setting up the Girls with Drills campaign, a movement that supports and promotes females in the engineering industry. The awards are sponsored by Ball Corporation, a leading supplier of aluminium cans, the world’s most recycled drinks containers.
Women now make up 16.5% of all engineers. The number of women working in engineering occupations has risen from 721,586 in 2016 to 936,000 in 2021, according to a report by Engineering UK, which was published in March 2022.
While each engineer in the top 50 list is unique, one recurring theme that unites many of the entrants is the focus on sustainability and the environment. Female engineers and the organisations they work for – from startups to construction giants – are becoming increasingly aware of the impact the engineering sector has on the environment.
The built environment alone generates nearly 40% of annual global CO2 emissions, while building materials and construction are responsible for an additional 11% annually.
Female engineers are working hard to combat this by creating products that monitor, capture and reduce carbon emissions, as well as developing energy solutions to decarbonise entire countries. From developing more eco-friendly infrastructures, transport systems and equipment, sustainability and the environment is at the heart of many of the projects featured in this year’s list.
“Once again, the Women’s Engineering Society is delighted to celebrate the achievements of women engineers,” says Elizabeth Donnelly, the society’s chief executive. “It’s a joy that so many innovative women are making a difference to our everyday lives and working to mitigate the impact that engineering has on the environment.”
Tackling poverty was also a priority for female engineers, with many of the projects ranging from building social housing to suspension bridges in developing countries so that people can more readily access education, employment and healthcare.
“As a company that is taking huge strides in creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce, we couldn’t be more proud of sponsoring the UK’s top 50 women engineers, as we understand the impact these amazing women make on the world we live and work in,” says Lauren Touré, diversity and inclusion manager at Ball Corporation.
If the future is in the hands of the women engineers on this list, it’s looking more hopeful than ever that we could be on track to meeting the United Nations sustainable development goals by 2030: to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people can enjoy peace and prosperity.
Numbers are for identification and do not reflect a ranking.
1 Hannah Abend, chief operating officer, Wood Thilsted
Hannah Abend has worked in renewable energy and sustainability since 2002 and has degrees in physics and geophysics. She began her working life at a tidal energy start-up before moving into the offshore wind sector. Her key invention is her transport and integration (T&I) software which is now standard practice in the industry to model wind and wave conditions for offshore wind farms.
2 Dr Tosin Adedipe-Elusakin, technical project manager, Cranfield University
Dr Tosin Adedipe-Elusakin is currently managing the £8m HyPER project, funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to test innovative hydrogen production technology with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Tosin is the institute liaison for the London young professionals network of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and was also vice president of education at the Toastmasters Society at Cranfield.
3 Ruth Amos, inventor, StairSteady/co-founder, Kids Invent Stuff
Ruth Amos started inventing when she was 16 while studying for her GCSEs in resistant materials. Her teacher challenged her to design something to help his own father use the stairs safely. She invented the StairSteady, and in 2006 won the Young Engineer for Britain award for her design. Amos co-founded the Girls With Drills campaign and ran the They Made It podcast for women engineers.
4 Mercedes Ascaso Til, principal engineer, DLT Engineering Ltd (formerly Dorman Long Technology)
Mercedes Ascaso Til was the chief engineer for the design of the deck lifting gantries of two recently built suspension bridges – the Nizhou bridge, part of Second Humen bridge in China, and the 1915 Çanakkale bridge spanning the Dardanelles strait in Turkey. Currently the longest in the world, it opened on 18 March (the 1915 refers to a first world war battle fought in the strait).
5 Eleanor Ball, co-founder and director, Graphic Structures
Eleanor Ball founded Graphic Structures, a design led engineering practice with gender balanced ownership, at the age of 30 and hopes to inspire other female engineers to progress to leadership roles. Her company now employs 12 engineers and works predominantly with public sector clients. Ball is a STEMNET volunteer and a member of Women in Social Housing.
6 Hani Baluch, solutions delivery manager, BP
Hani Baluch works in BP’s newly formed regions, cities and solutions team after switching from petroleum engineering. She now works to identify and deliver integrated energy solutions to help decarbonise countries, cities and corporations. She has played a pivotal role in developing solutions for low carbon technologies, such as geothermal and carbon capture and storage.
7 Divya Bhanderi, senior engineer, Arup
Divya Bhanderi led the creation of the National Highways travel demand management programme to maximise road capacity without building new infrastructures. Her work informed National Highway’s net zero plan, shaped strategy and is currently being considered for inclusion in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges as a mandatory standard.
8 Dr Qianyu Chen, research fellow, University of Birmingham
Dr Qianyu Chen leads a world-class research team which helps to develop innovative ideas for supporting sustainable transport systems. Her collaborations with teams from HS2 Ltd on developing simulation models for high-speed rails should help to improve safety and the efficient running of trains. Chen devotes one evening a week to deliver free courses at Code First Girls Community which focuses on supporting girls, particularly from underrepresented ethnicities, to develop coding skills.
9 Jessica Coldrey, digital skills mentor, creative technologist, Birmingham Open Media
Jessica Coldrey did an MSc in humanitarian engineering (with management) at Warwick University on making global cities more inclusive, vibrant and sustainable through creative engineering. Her work has been featured in Highway Engineering Magazine, the Journal of Humanitarian Engineering and the Smart Community Podcast.
10 Evelyn Cropper, technical manager Stirling Dynamics
Evelyn has worked in aerospace engineering for 44 years and is an industry recognised expert on aircraft loads and aeroelastics, which are fundamental for the safety of aircrafts. She is also studying for a masters in mathematics in her spare time. Evelyn is a chartered engineer and a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.
11 Philippa Davies, engineering director, Reaction Engines
Philippa Davies has led the creation of the company’s first environmental strategy and has overall responsibility for the leadership of all engineers in the business. She was featured in The New Statesman in January 2022 with a personal profile and her thoughts on the new space economy. She is an advocate and role model for women in engineering, including encouraging women into the space sector through a National Space Centre initiative on YouTube.
12 Beth Dickens, director, Quoceant Ltd
Beth Dickens has 20 years experience working at the forefront of marine renewables and has dedicated her career to the development and promotion of clean energy solutions. She co-founded Quoceant, working to build the company into a successful engineering consultancy with a seven-figure turnover and clients throughout the wave, tidal and offshore wind industries.
13 Dr Ama Frimpong, head of product development, 52 North Health
Ama Frimpong leads the development of NeutroCheck, a low-cost, portable device that helps identify cancer patients at risk of neutropenic sepsis, a life-threatening medical emergency occurring in immunosuppressed chemotherapy patients. With Frimpong’s leadership, NeutroCheck has been taken from an idea to a patented concept which is currently undergoing testing in partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support.
14 Jennifer Glover, graduate acoustic consultant, AECOM
During Jennifer Glover’s PhD, she researched and developed a jet engine noise control solution which used innovative metamaterial design to reduce low frequency engine noise at take-off and landing. She has transferred those skills to industry, working in AECOM’s highways and rail acoustics teams making national infrastructure projects, such as HS2 and the M54-M6 link, acoustically sustainable.
15 Bethany Hall, technical assistant (electrical engineer aerospace), Rolls-Royce/Aerospace Technology Institute
Bethany Hall has worked in sustainable aircraft development since being awarded the IET Power Academy Scholarship with Rolls-Royce in 2015. Over the past 12 months, Hall has worked on the UK government-funded FlyZero project, which is investigating the potential for liquid hydrogen to fuel zero-emission commercial aviation. The tool equips engineers to think about environmental and social impacts of their designs across the product lifecycle.
16 Dr Yiheng Hu, PhD researcher, University of Huddersfield
Dr Yiheng Hu is currently researching BESS (battery energy storage systems) for renewables integration to support sustainability and combat climate change. She has also been involved in mentoring programmes for the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition, aiming to advance the role of women and promote best practices within the sustainable energy sector.
17 Rowena Innocent, senior vice president of engineering at Ultraleap
Rowena Innocent’s career spans three decades in high-tech product development and manufacturing. In March 2021, she started her current role, which included setting up the Spectris Foundation – a charity supporting STEM education. She has also become honorary professor for technology, innovation and equality at the University of Bristol.
18 Tina Irvine, engineer, Arup
Tina Irvine led the formation of Arup’s climate emergency response committee in Yorkshire with other female colleagues. She has been instrumental in creating a template for carbon reporting for all infrastructure projects within Arup. This tool enables engineers to quantify the total carbon cost of different design solutions, driving more sustainable, evidence-based solutions.
19 Dr Ornella Iuorio, associate professor, University of Leeds
Dr Ornella Iuorio has shaped a new multi and trans-disciplinary research strand in architectural engineering at the University of Leeds, established a research group in sustainable buildings, and is currently director of the Cities, Infrastructure and Energy research group. Iuorio has been school lead for equality, diversity and inclusion since 2017.
20 Prof Caroline Jay, head of research, School of Engineering, University of Manchester
Caroline Jay has worked across a number of engineering projects – from collaborating with the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to integrate a public voice into Covid-19 modelling, to studying the impact of pollution on health at the Alan Turing Institute. She works to create a culture of belonging and nurture the potential she sees in women from minority ethnic backgrounds.
21 Alice Kan, pharmaceutical director, Kan Do Ventures
Alice Kan was headhunted by Wockhardt UK to direct the development of the manufacturing process and facility to produce 100m doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. Kan developed the end-to-end manufacturing process for the vaccine at an unprecedented pace, planning and modelling production quality, capacity and cost against client scope and expectations to deliver 16m doses a month.
22 Prof Eiman Kanjo, head of Smart Sensing Lab, Nottingham Trent University
Under the leadership of Prof Eiman Kanjo, her team has won the 2021 vice-chancellor’s Outstanding Researcher Team Award. In addition, she has been part of a growing effort to remove the obstacles faced by Arab female students and co-founded a nonprofit organisation, Arab Women in Computing. She is also a panellist for Athena SWAN – an initiative that aims to improve the numbers of women in Stem – and board member of the Lifeboat Foundation.
23 Natalie Kerres, CEO and founder, SCALED
Natalie Kerres developed SCALED, a material innovation providing flexible and protective wearables, for her thesis. The patented algorithm 3D-prints a material that consists of interlocking scales, inspired by reptile skins. Kerres was also part of the Imperial Enterprise Lab WE Innovate programme in 2021, a pre-accelerator for women in engineering innovation startups.
24 Palvisha Khan, EMEA strategy and transformation lead, Reliance Worldwide Corporation
Palvisha Khan is the youngest South Asian female in a lead process development role in her organisation and has designed an EMEA Environment and Sustainability blueprint, focusing on sustainable packaging and decarbonisation. She has transitioned to suitably sourced materials and reduced the packaging and CO2 footprint by a third. Pasha is on route to attain a 20% cost saving for the company.
25 Dr Alalea Kia, research fellow, Imperial College London
Dr Alalea Kia is developing a new type of concrete – known as Kiacrete – that is resistant to clogging and absorbs stormwater, with the aim of mitigating some of the impact that climate change will have on urban environments, such as flooding. She has also secured two prestigious research fellowships to apply her innovation to new use cases, addressing wider societal challenges.
26 Lucie Killen, structural engineer, Price & Myers
Lucie Killen was part of a team of five engineers, who in partnership with Bridges to Prosperity, built a new suspension bridge in Runyani, Rwanda in 2020. This enabled more children to enrol in school and access essential services, including healthcare and employment. Killen is also part of the team that has developed a new tool called PANDA (Parametric and Numeric Design Assessment), which has the potential to reduce embodied carbon in construction by as much as 40%.
27 Guneet Kaur Kohli, engineer, Arup
Guneet Kaur Kohli uses her passion for sustainability, creativity and technical skills to develop digital products. Over the past four years, Kohli has been at the forefront of creating Kliima – a climate data tool that helps projects, such as HS2 and National Grid, quantitatively understand climate change. As a junior engineer, she influenced global senior leadership to invest in the creation of Kliima, where she now leads the technical development.
28 Marisa Kurimbokus, mechanical engineering team leader, Aeristech
Marisa Kurimbokus started her career at Jaguar Land Rover, developing the company’s CO2 reduction strategy, before moving on to Triumph Motorcycles. She now leads the automotive division at Aeristech, focusing on sustainability through design for electric air compressor technology. She was awarded the title of IMechE Young Engineer of the Year in 2020 for her Stem work. She speaks regularly at schools and higher education institutions about opportunities in engineering.
29 Sarah Lu, PhD researcher, University of Southampton
Sarah Lu is a PhD researcher and a Rolls-Royce scholar, and is currently developing a lab-on-a-chip sensor to detect difficult-to-measure radionuclides. Due to a severe respiratory condition, Lu was discouraged from pursuing a career in engineering. But instead of giving up, she became a leader in her field, mentoring for Arkwright Engineering scholarships and the Social Mobility Foundation to support the next generation of engineers.
30 Noor Mansur, senior electronics engineer, Dyson
Noor Mansur’s engineering career began at the University of York, where she completed a MEng degree in electronic engineering, specialising in avionics. She now designs electronics hardware for robot and cordless vacuum cleaners, creating products for the global market.
31 Serena Margadonna, head of the school of engineering and applied sciences, Swansea University
Serena Margadonna has worked in a number of different leadership roles before joining Swansea University in 2021. Her current role focuses on developing materials and processes for the sustainable manufacturing and recycling of secondary batteries. In collaboration with Enserv Power – a global battery technology developer – she is enabling the commercialisation of next-generation zero-excess anode-free sodium-ion batteries.
32 Gabriela Medero, professor in geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering, Heriot-Watt University
Gabriela Medero set out to address the damage the construction industry has on precious natural materials. Bringing together a multidisciplinary team, she’s invented the K-Briq – the world’s first brick made from 90% construction and demolition waste – which produces a tenth of the CO2 emissions of a traditional brick.
33 Nausheen Mehboob Basha, project manager and researcher, Imperial College London
Nausheen Mehboob Basha completed her PhD in computational fluid dynamics modelling of compressors alongside her full-time job. She was awarded the Ted Perry award for student research for practical impact in the compressor industry, and her work has been published in peer-reviewed journal, Applied Thermal Engineering.
34 Aline Miller, professor and associate dean, University of Manchester
Aline Miller is the founding director of Manchester Biogel, a company derived from her academic lab in 2013. In 2018, she took on the chief executive role, and became associate dean for innovation and business engagement in science and engineering in 2021. She has published more than 100 refereed papers, authored five patents and won more than £8m from research councils, the European Union, charities and industry to support her research group.
35 Sophie V Morse, research fellow, Imperial College London
After completing her PhD in biomedical engineering, Sophie Morse was awarded a four-year fellowship to start a research group. She is currently working on improving a non-invasive technology that allows drugs into the brain using focused ultrasound and microbubbles. By engineering new ultrasound sequences, Morse has overcome the challenge of delivering drugs across the blood-brain barrier.
36 Youmna Mouhamad, Royal Academy of Engineering fellow 2020, Myana Naturals
Black women with textured hair are frequently encouraged to straighten it to appear more “professional”, Youmna Mouhamad says. Countering this push for conformity, she created the Nyfasi Deluxe detangling comb. The comb allows the simultaneous detangling and conditioning of hair in a pain-free manner, empowering black women to be their true selves.
37 Priti Parikh, head of UCL’s Engineering for International Development Centre
Priti Parikh worked on infrastructure projects in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the UK prior to becoming an academic. She founded an MSc programme in engineering for international development at University College London to address skills gaps, which attracted students from more than 30 countries. Her research portfolio focuses on water, sanitation, energy infrastructure and its impact on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and climate change.
38 Krystina Pearson-Rampeearee, senior flight systems engineer, BAE Systems
Krystina Pearson-Rampeearee has been working in the future combat air system team on the Tempest project, using engineering principles to develop and integrate new technologies on to a next generation fast jet. She is also the co-coordinator for the Women’s Engineering Society Merseyside cluster and recently became an Institution of Engineering and Technology education officer, to support opportunities for young people to learn about engineering.
39 Rachel Pether, director of water utilities, Binnies
In 2018, Rachel became the first female all reservoirs panel engineer, the highest level of technical expert in UK reservoir safety. She is passionate about sustainability, and at COP26 led a round table discussion on nature-based solutions for the water industry. Pether also recently led a team to create and launch Binnies’ iDMS, intelligent dam monitoring system.
40 Dr Agnieszka Rutkowska, lead electrochemist, Depixus
As the electrochemistry lead at Depixus, Dr Agnieszka Rutkowska co-directs the electrochemical development of a new class of electronic sensors that signal epigenetic changes in DNA and RNA. As a member of the Polish Women’s Network UK and of the International Council of Polish Women, she supports Polish women living in the UK in their careers in Stem and beyond.
41 Prof Lidija Šiller, professor of nanoscale science, School of Engineering, Newcastle University
Prof Lidija Šiller’s successes include co-invention, scale up, technology transfer and licensing. With a chair in nanoscale science, she has recently developed two important innovations and business partnerships to combat the impact of climate change. Her work in carbon capture led to the design of Bergen’s first plant for continuous mineralisation of C02 flue gas.
42 Radhika Srinivasan, CEO and founder, EcoTextura
Radhika Srinivasan started redesigning patient gowns after struggling to wear one during a hospital visit in 2015. During her research, she learned how harmful the existing, plastic-based disposable PPE is to the environment. She set out to change this and find sustainable solutions; making the world’s first compostable patient gown. EcoTextura now supplies eco-friendly PPE to the NHS and Radhika is coordinating efforts to send medical supplies and PPE products to Ukraine.
43 Swati, director, Anant Biomedical Limited
Swati founded Anant Biomedical in 2021 and provides a range of healthcare related solutions to hospitals and healthcare industries. The company specialises in medical device services and also acts as an academy trainer, providing support in medical device management. While working as a biomedical engineer at a medical devices R&D company, Swati realised that the company’s electrosurgical units were not sustainable. Swati implemented five pathways to improve the sustainability of these medical devices, including recycling them.
44 Sarah Teliani, project manager, Arup
After winning the ICE-Balfour Beatty Student Innovator of the Year award in 2016 for her ideas on how to improve the health, safety and sustainability on construction sites which included using robotics and carbon-neutral materials, Sarah co-founded a mentoring programme. Her programme has now helped over 200 people at Arup. Sarah also founded and chaired the Institution of Civil Engineers Essay Group to help support colleagues in preparing for their professional review.
45 Dr Navya Thomas, research fellow in membrane crystallisation, Cranfield University
Dr Navya Thomas leads research to scale up membrane technology for modular and decentralised wastewater treatment for rural and off-grid households. Her doctoral research leveraged 3D printing to develop complex geometries for clean water production. Her work has been shown to reduce membrane fouling by 50% and increase clean water production by up to 60%.
46 Georgia Thompson, assistant design programme manager, BAM Nuttall
Georgia is an assistant design programme manager on the central section of HS2. She oversees the design programme of a £1bn portfolio. On a recent project, she introduced a product which saved £1.3m and which she had researched for two years. In 2021, she worked with the Institute of Physics to try to encourage more girls to study physics.
47 Carolina Toczycka, co-founder and chief commercial officer, Lenz Labs
Carolina Toczycka is the co-founder of a start-up that invented IP-pending hardware-software products for the rail network – a train braking system to increase traction and a maintenance platform that optimises scheduling of work. By increasing rail efficiency, the Lenz Labs products can potentially save 0.37 giga tonnes of CO2e annually in rail freight capacity (via faster braking, gradient increase, higher technical loads.). Toczycka is also working to tackle social inequalities through a better access to education and work opportunities.
48 Georgina Wharton, director of science and technology, Parkside Community school
Georgina Wharton teaches design technology and engineering and has become an “evidence leader in education” for the research schools network. In this role she supports colleagues in other schools, including developing the teaching of engineering and design technology at primary school age. She is also leading on sustainability at Parkside Community School, working to develop bio diversity on the site and incorporate sustainability into the curriculum.
49 Jane Wright, Infrastructure carbon adviser, Department for Transport (DfT)
Jane Wright joined the DfT in April 2022 after leading the design of Transport for London’s (TfL) carbon management tools, training and processes. She developed a tool to create carbon models for highways, rail, e-scooter and art on the underground. Jane also set up a working group in 2021 at TfL to increase the number of female applicants to the early careers schemes.
50 Nadja Yang, president, European Young Engineers
Nadja Yang is currently finishing her PhD in systems engineering at the University of Oxford where she researches the urban bioeconomy, looking at ways to help cities become more sustainable. She is also president of European Young Engineers, an international organisation that represents 500,000 young people in the engineering sector across Europe. Her work with the organisation has been recognised by the German-language edition of Forbes 30 under 30.
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The Women’s Engineering Society has not validated any claims to invention and innovation. Any dispute about the veracity of any claim should be taken up directly with the claimant.
