From Curiosity to Community: Reflections on a Career in Engineering

I have never regretted becoming an engineer, it has been a very rewarding career. It is an honour to receive recognition from Engineering New Zealand by becoming a Fellow. It also aligns with my desire to be a role model for female engineers who are underrepresented in the hall of Fellows.

Over recent years I, and many other female engineers, have grappled with the concept of Fellows. The name can be off putting if you consider it from a gender perspective. After researching the origins of Fellows, I have made peace with it not being a gendered term; it is a name well accepted in academia and professional recognition to be gender neutral. Of course, I have tried to think of a word or term that could take its place to be less off putting to females but have drawn a blank to date. Maybe this is something for the future generation to tackle.

In the process of preparing the Fellows paperwork I reflected on my career and how I landed in engineering in the first place. Back in the 90’s I had contemplated a range of different career ideas and I'm thankful that my parents were able to introduce me to a range of people from different jobs so that I could explore these ideas. This was supplemented with guest speakers in 6^th Form Geography talking about planning and engineering solutions and the positive and negative impacts of these on the community. Once I landed at ‘engineer’ I needed to catch up on my physics at school. This meant I couldn't go to university in the first instance, so I went to Christchurch polytechnic to complete a NZ Certificate in Civil Engineering (NZCE). I then worked for four years as a materials lab technician and road designer; and with this background I was able to jump halfway into a Bachelor of Civil Engineering.

Upon graduating I tried a range of different fields within civil engineering. I set up a hydraulic water supply model for the town of Bendigo; I looked for an appropriate site for a landfill in Gisborne; I headed overseas and undertook structural bridge assessments in the UK. But ultimately, I chose transport because transport is all about people. I then concluded I needed some more theory, so I completed my Masters in Transportation Engineering part time balancing work, study and parenting.

This profession has allowed me to help communities with travel choices; to enjoy beautiful streetscapes and many other transport related outcomes. The highlight of my career was helping rebuild the streets of Kaiapoi after the Canterbury earthquakes. I loved working with the community on ideas for their streets and really helping them understand why streets are designed certain ways. The one-on-one conversations with people really helps them ‘click’. For example, one man asked me why would you put a cycleway in Kaiapoi as nobody bikes here. I asked him, ‘why do you think that is?’, he replied because everyone drives too fast. Then he clicked and said, ‘oh I see now’. At the next consultation event he and his children turned up on their bikes, and he gave me a grin.

Unfortunately transport engineering is highly influenced by politics. Policies and the associated funding can impact progress on good outcomes. Of course, ‘good’ will vary for everyone but in our profession, I think most people would agree that good is all about saving lives, improving liveability and contributing to good health and environmental outcomes. This means that projects related to appropriate speed management, walking and cycling and public transport are critically important. The last few years have been very challenging for our sector in NZ, but we need to stay positive and keep talking with the community, but I suggest avoiding the topic of speed humps at social events!