Tag: WomenInSTEM

Accelerating innovation by raising ambitions – the 10th Clean Energy Ministerial through a young person’s eyes

PhD student Luciana Miu
Luciana Miu, PhD student at Imperial College London

Article by PhD student Luciana Miu.

With the rising urgency of climate change and a sore need for global commitments to sustainable energy, it’s no surprise that intergovernmental partnerships and initiatives are taking centre stage these days. Perhaps the most important example from the energy sector is the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), a high-level forum of 25 countries advancing programmes to accelerate clean energy deployment, recently coupled with Mission Innovation (MI), another global initiative which seeks to build public and private investment in clean energy technologies. However, up until the most recent annual CEM/MI meeting, one aspect of these ambitious initiatives remained puzzling.

There was no structured presence of youth at the meetings.

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Customised healthcare to predict outcomes in cardiovascular surgery

Ms Selene Pirola from Imperial College London
Selene Pirola, Department of Chemical Engineering

Article by Selene Pirola and Chloe Armour.

Selene Pirola, Research Assistant in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London, is researching the fluid dynamics of blood with the aim of being able to better predict outcomes of cardiovascular surgery. Specifically, her most recent research looks at the impact of blood flow and pressure in patients treated for aortic dissection.

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Celebrating Women at Imperial: Chemical engineering postgraduates

To continue our Women@Imperial Week celebrations our student reporter Dora Olah interviewed two postgraduates from the Department of Chemical Engineering about their experience at Imperial.

Hannah Moran (PhD student)

What made you want to study Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London?

For my undergraduate studies, I wanted to study Chemical Engineering because it fit perfectly my interests and talents in maths and the sciences, and its graduates have excellent career prospects. I chose Imperial College London because it’s one of the best universities, and I had such a good experience on my interview day that I knew it was the place for me. I chose to return to Imperial to do my PhD because, again, it’s one of the best research institutions in the world, and it has excellent links to industry. It was very important to me to undertake my PhD in something useful and applicable, and Chemical Engineering at Imperial is really good for this.

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Celebrating Women at Imperial: Chemical engineering undergraduates

To mark the annual Women@Imperial Week our student reporter Dora Olah interviewed three undergraduates from the Department of Chemical Engineering about their experience at Imperial.

Emily Xu (first year undergraduate student)

What made you want to study Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London? 

I’ve always enjoyed Chemistry, Physics and Maths; Chemical Engineering was the one course that would combine all my interests into one. The course also has the perfect balance between creativity with academic rigour. Out of all the universities, Imperial stood out to me as the course that prepares you for both work in industry and research.

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“Engineers are absolutely essential to solving so many of the world’s problems”: Dr Marlene Kanga on engineering, diversity, and her role as President of the WFEO

Dr Marlene Kanga AM is President of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations (WFEO), the international body for engineering institutions representing some 100 engineering institutions and approximately 30 million engineers around the world. She is the first chemical engineer to hold this position, specialising in process safety and risk engineering for the oil and gas industry in Australia and New Zealand.

Dr Kanga completed her Masters Degree in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London in 1977, prior to which she achieved a Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. She also holds a PhD in Business Administration from Macquarie University in Sydney.

In October she will be attending the Global Engineering Congress, co-hosted by the WFEO and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), where she has organised two sessions on diversity. It’s a subject she’s passionate about, so we caught up with her in advance of the conference to find out more.

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INWED18: My journey into engineering and how I’m smashing the engineering stereotype

Our final blog to celebrate International Woman in Engineering is written by Dr Maria Papathanasiou, who tells us about her journey into engineering and how she combines her two loves: science and acting. She wants to empower female engineers to be themselves, regardless of whether or not they fit the stereotype, and help ensure that engineering is an accepting and welcoming environment.

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INWED18: Tips for success from a chemical engineering entrepreneur

Dr Florence Gschwend is a Research Associate in the Department of Chemical Engineering. She has won several awards for her research in recent years, so for International Women in Engineering Day we asked her to tell us about her experience and the advice she would give other women interested in following a similar path.

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INWED18: My formula for managing anxiety alongside my chemical engineering studies

Engineering student Marine writes about her experience of anxiety prior to International Women in Engineering Day, to raise awareness of mental health on campus, and share some of the techniques she has found useful for managing it. She believes in the importance of talking about anxiety because it helps others realise they’re not alone in managing it, and that it doesn’t have to define a person’s life.

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INWED18: The engineering gender-gap in school age children

As part of our blog series for International Women in Engineering Day, Hannah Moran, a Doctoral Researcher in Matar Fluids Group/Clean Energy Process, explores the reasons for the gender gap in science subjects beyond GSCE.  She makes the case for raising awareness of engineering as a career option to encourage more young people, particularly girls, into the profession.

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