WISE Student Colloquium - Speakers

WISE Student Colloquium - Speakers

Jo Carris

Senior Sustainability Consultant at Useful Simple Projects

Jo holds a Masters in Environmental Technology and Energy Policy from Imperial College and is a Chartered Environmentalist. She joined Useful Simple Projects from the Olympic Delivery Partner’s Sustainability Team, where she provided technical advice and assurance on the programme’s sustainability objectives. More recently, she has been building on this experience through the development of sustainability strategies for the 2014 Brazil World Cup and Rio 2016 Olympics. Jo won the WISE Excellence Award in 2013 and was listed as one of Building Magazine’s Top 50 Rising Stars of Sustainability in 2012. She is a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers Waste Panel for London, is the company UKGBC representative and a STEM Ambassador.

Ruth Amos

Entrepreneur and Managing Director of StairSteady Ltd

Ruth Amos is a British entrepreneur and inventor of the StairSteady, an aid to enable people with limited mobility to use their stairs confidently and safely. Amos invented StairSteady as part of a GCSE materials project. Her product was launched at the 2008 Naidex national healthcare show, with StairSteady Ltd commencing trading in the September of the same year. As the Managing Director, 21 year old Ruth has seen the steady growth of her StairSteady, brand which has become a household name.

Ruth is the 2011 winner of the Network of Aspiring Women’s Young Entrepeneur Award. Passionate about education, in the same year she set up SteelTV, a media company run by young people, and Drols Ltd, a children’s brand that focusing on education and life skills through play.

April Feick

Director and Chairman of ExxonMobil Chemical Limited in the UK

April Feick was appointed Site Manager for ExxonMobil Chemical Limited’s production site at Fawley, Hampshire, in June 2013. April’s primary responsibility is to manage the operation of the plant facilities to meet customer needs in a manner that protects the safety of employees, others involved in operations, customers, and the public - whilst also meeting all applicable regulatory requirements and acting in adherence to ExxonMobil’s standards of business conduct. In addition, April is Director and Chairman of ExxonMobil Chemical Limited in the UK, as well as the ExxonMobil subsidiary Advanced Elastomer Systems Limited. April graduated as a Chemical Engineer from the University of Houston and has worked for ExxonMobil for 17 years. She has held multiple manufacturing positions for ExxonMobil at Baytown, Texas, and business positions in both the ExxonMobil Chemical Company in Houston, Texas, and in ExxonMobil’s Refining and Supply division in Fairfax, Virginia.

Philippa Oldham

Institute of Mechanical Engineers

Philippa Oldham is Head of Transport and Manufacturing at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, where she helps to raise the profile of engineers so that they can develop safe and efficient transport systems with less congestion and emissions, acting as a voice for the Institution on behalf of their 106,000 international members.

Dr Laura Waters

Principal Enterprise Fellow at the University of Huddersfield

Dr Laura Waters is a Principal Enterprise Fellow at the University of Huddersfield. She manages an active research group investigating pharmaceutics, thermodynamics and alternatives to animal testing. She undertakes a lot of work for public engagement, including public lectures, magazine articles and appearances on television.

Dr Leigh Fleming

Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing & Engineering at the University of Huddersfield

Leigh Graduated in 1999 with a BEng (hons) In Engineering Design: Mechanical from the University of Huddersfield, where she stayed to complete her PhD looking at the use of surface measurement do determine wear mechanisms involved in the failure of total hip replacement. Following a period working in industry in research and development at DePuy International, a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson, Leigh returned to academia to pursue research in a number of different areas. Currently a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing and Engineering at The University of Huddersfield, Leigh teaches on several modules in the department of Engineering and Technology, and is course leader for the Engineering Foundation Course. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and is a STEM ambassador in the Yorkshire and Humber Region. Leigh’s research interests include the application of measurement technology to novel situations projects ranging from process optimisation of manufacturing in aerospace components to characterisation of orthopaedic implant surfaces for wear detection with Industrial partners such as Rolls Royce, Cummins Turbo Technologies and NPL. Other projects have seen Leigh work with defect detection in flexible photo-voltaic cells and also characterisation of silk protein for use in knee repair surgery, recent work has seen research in improvements in wound and pressure care in collaboration with clinical colleagues.

Speakers for the Panel Discussion: You can make a difference

Gillian Arnold, chair of the panel discussion

WISE Board member and CEO of Tectre

Gillian has extensive experience in the IT industry and set up her own IT Services and Staffing company, Tectre in late 2009. Tectre provides sales, technical and HR services to the IT Vendors, Distributors and Resellers and have recently been offering Green IT and System Z consulting. Most of Gillian’s early career was spent working for IBM in the UK and she held customer facing technical, sales, business development, strategic marketing and consultancy roles. She proved her expertise in managing and establishing teams for new products, and building teams with cross-industry and cross platform experience across EMEA and the UK. Gillian has a long involvement with work for Women in IT. As well as sitting on the Board of Directors for WISE she is Chair of the British Computer Society group for its female members, BCSWomen. Gillian was a finalist in the 2012 Everywoman In Technology awards.

Harriet Vickers

2013 winner of the Range Rover Evoque WISE Scholarship 2013

Harriet was the only person in her year to apply to study engineering at university, and she is now taking the first steps towards achieving the ambition to become an engineer she has held since she was 13 years old. Harriet was awarded the 2013 Range Rover Evoque WISE Scholarship due to her exception talent and passion for the subject, and her dedication to inspiring other young women. She has gained experience working with major engineering firms National Grid and Arup, and has previously volunteered on a joint expedition to Kenya and Tanzania, where she helped to build the foundations for a medical centre with local engineers. She is currently a student at the University of Durham.

Emma Shires

Graduate Trainee Engineer, Rolls Royce

I had always been interested in science and maths, but at a more practical level and so when a teacher at school suggested Engineering as a university course, even though I didn’t know too much about it, it seemed like a perfect fit. After graduating from Liverpool University with an MEng in Aerospace Engineering, I am now working at Rolls Royce as an Engineering Leadership Graduate. As part of the scheme I do three 6 month placements; my first of which has been in Test and Measurement in Derby and I am currently organising my second attachment abroad. The graduate scheme is giving me the opportunity to get real engineering experience across different sectors and functions within Rolls Royce; which will ultimately enable me to direct my career where I want in the future. I haven’t been there long but I am enjoying it so much; every day is different and I have been given work to do that is technically challenging and rewarding.

Camilla Nicholson

Graduate Civil Engineer at Atkins

Camilla is a graduate Civil engineer at Atkins, working for Energy Oil & Gas. She finished her four year integrated masters in Civil Engineering at Imperial College in June 2013, with specialist modules taken in Hydrodynamics, Structural Dynamics and Statistical Analysis of Risk. Since joining Atkins, Camilla has provided technical support to a number of North Sea assets regarding uncertified steelwork, defect analysis, inspection schemes and inspection report databases.

John Allport

Professor of Automotive Engineering at the University of Huddersfield

John is responsible for setting up industry driven Masters level courses at the University of Huddersfield as well as applied research in the Automotive Engineering field. Prior to this, John has worked for many years across several positions relating to the development of vibration attenuating products for rotational machinery. After completing his Ph.D John moved to work in turbochargers, where he developed the computer simulation group at Cummins Turbo Technologies from a small UK based group to a large global team. More recently, John has been responsible for setting up new graduate recruitment and training schemes for the Indian and Chinese operations of Cummins Turbos, and for developing the Cummins UK strategy for university placement and graduate recruitment and training. This was linked with work into corporate schools outreach, with the objective of attracting more school students, particularly girls, to take up engineering as a career.

Dr Nina Skorupska - Master of Ceremonies

Non-Executive Director of WISE

Dr Nina Skorupska has over 25 years in the Energy Industry. Nina’s career began as a fuel specialist but moved quickly onto power stations which led to her being appointed the first female Power Station Manager of RWE npower. Since that time she has led a UK Energy Trading team for RWE, followed by being RWE npower’s Director of Technology Services. In July 2013 Nina took the helm of the Renewable Energy Association as its Chief Executive, joining the WISE board the following year in February 2014.