IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year: Jenni Sidey is a lecturer in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, currently working on the development of the latest low emission combustion devices for use in the transportation and energy sectors.
IET Mary George Memorial Prize for Apprentices: Gemma Dalziel is an apprentice network consulting engineer at Cisco, working on network technologies and network security.
Women’s Engineering Society (WES) Award: Bethan Murray is a manufacturing systems lead at Rolls-Royce Plc, working on the systems that aid the manufacture of the latest aircraft components.
On winning, Ms Sidey said: “I am enormously proud to be recognised by such a progressive program promoting women in engineering within the UK. The IET has worked hard to raise awareness of the lack of diversity within the engineering profession and I hope that, through my receipt of this award and involvement in gender diversity initiatives, I can strengthen the IET’s sentiment: to reach our technological potential, the UK’s engineering workforce must be inclusive and diverse.”
These engineering industry awards celebrate women working in modern engineering and aim to help change the perception that engineering is predominantly a career for men by questioning outdated engineering stereotypes of hard hats and greasy pipes.
As well as highlighting female engineering talent, the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards seeks to find female role models who can help address the UK science and engineering skills crisis by promoting engineering careers to more girls and women. Women currently represent only 9% of the engineering workforce in the UK according to the 2016 IET Skills Survey, the lowest percentage in Europe.
IET president Jeremy Watson CBE said: “I’d like to congratulate the three winners and other finalists. These talented women are a real credit to the engineering profession and will help to encourage more girls to consider a career in engineering and technology.
Institution of Engineering and Technology www.theiet.org
