Guest presenter Donna Carty of Challenge Training Consultancy was invited to speak at the Department to an audience of about 100 men and women in an event entitled ‘Addressing Unconscious Bias.’ The forum was sponsored by Taylor Vinters and TTP plc. and organised and hosted by Camille Bilger, PhD student in the Energy Group.

During the forum, Donna explored how, despite the best efforts of companies and universities to ensure diversity, efforts can be undermined by unconscious bias – the unintentional preferences formed by our socialisation and experiences. These pervasive and often negative biases can play out in the workplace and affect all people regardless of gender, race or religion. In order to address these biases, Donna posited, it’s important to be aware of the micro-messages we broadcast and to step back by developing a constructive uncertainty surrounding the people with whom we interact.

As the theme of National Women in Engineering Day 2016 was raising profiles of women in engineering, the Department’s Women in Engineering website published several profiles of students and staff that demonstrate how women are forging successful paths at Cambridge in all branches of engineering and at every level.

Finally, Cambridge TV looked at the important roles of women in engineering by visiting the Department and interviewing Dr Jenni Sidey, University Lecturer in Internal Combustion Engines, and Camille for a story airing during the daily news programme. The video is embedded above.

Photo gallery: Women in Engineering Forum on Addressing Unconscious Bias

The competition was run by the Athena Swan team in order to raise awareness of the many amazing women engineers, past and present, and to help inspire others to pursue study and careers in engineering. Nearly all the engineering portraits that hang around the Department of Engineering are of male engineers; displaying the winning entries will help to redress the balance and counteract the ‘stereotype threat’ effect for the many women now studying and working in the department.

The competition attracted 60 nominations of women from all over the world and all engineering disciplines – from over 2000 years ago up to the very current achievements of Department of Engineering alumna Ruth Buscombe. Ineligible for nomination were women currently working or studying in the department, as this would have made judging an impossible task.

The quality of entries was excellent, and with so many interesting stories the judging panel found their task very difficult. After some discussion, first prize was awarded to Vere Whittome for his nomination of Margaret Hamilton.

Using one of the first chip-based computers with only 64k of memory, Margaret successfully wrote the code which enabled humans to land on the moon. Through her scientific papers and the work of the company she later founded she also made important contributions to ideas about fault-tolerance and reliability.

Vere, an undergraduate engineer in the department, was presented with his prize of an iPad by Professor Dame Ann Dowling, who also presented gift tokens for chocolate to the twenty runners up. Dame Ann, former Head of Department and Professor in the Energy, Fluid Mechanics and Turbomachinery division, now serves as President of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

The winning and shortlisted entries have been designed and printed in-house and are on display in the Engineering Library. After the initial display, the posters will be framed and shown around the Department’s various buildings. The 60 total entries will be bound together in a booklet which will be available in the library.

There is already interest in running the competition again, and the hope is this will become an annual event.

To complement the competition posters we are currently seeking profiles of women engineers (both staff and students) from within the Department. We are aiming to publish these profiles to coincide with National Women in Engineering Day on 23 June 2016 to inspire potential women applicants by showing that women are forging successful paths at Cambridge in all branches of engineering and at every level. If you are interested or wish to know more, please visit this link. 

We wanted to thank the Engineering Department at Cambridge for what they did for our son, Joe, setting him on a brilliant career path.

Geoff and Jean Oatley

The Oatley Projects Garage officially opened in a ceremony on 15 February by benefactors Geoff and Jean Oatley. Also present were son Joe Oatley, Department of Engineering graduate (1987) and now CEO of Cape plc., international provider of support services to the energy and mineral resources sectors; Joe’s wife Jane, graduate of the Department of Veterinary medicine; and several other family members.

The garage’s electric door opened to reveal ‘Evolution’ the Eco Racing Team’s solar car returned from the World Solar Challenge in Australia, alongside the Full Blue Racing Team’s FBR16 (Formula 1 car). The student team members were able to thank Geoff and Jean personally, and explain how valuable the new garage is to their projects; this is their first ever garage area on site – it will save the project teams huge amounts of time and money.

The Oatley grandchildren Sam, Sophie and Patrick tried out both cars and later built their own mini solar cars in the Dyson Centre for Engineering Design under the supervision of Outreach Officer Maria Kettle.

Several members of the Department of Engineering were present at the opening, including Professor David Cardwell (Head of Department), Mr Philip Guildford (Director of Research), Dr Claire Barlow, Dr David Cole, Dr Paul Heffernan, Dr Richard Roebuck, Dr Hugh Shercliff, Dr Ronan Daly, Dr Simon Guest and Tom Ridgman, as well as representatives from student teams Full Blue Racing and Cambridge University Eco Racing.

“We wanted to thank the Engineering Department at Cambridge for what they did for our son, Joe, setting him on a brilliant career path,” said Geoff and Jean. Their gift not only provides for the cutting-edge garage-cum-workshop for student projects but enables the Department’s outreach work with the local community.

The Department of Engineering hosts or is associated with a number of student-led societies in addition to Full Blue and Eco Racing, such as Cambridge University Spaceflight, the Cambridge Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Team, Engineers Without Borders, the ecohouse initiative, Cambridge University Autonomous Flight and Cambridge University Entrepreneurs. More information about the Department’s student-led societies can be found at the link to the right. 

Gallery: Opening of the Oatley Projects Garage

Situated in front of the Department of Engineering’s Baker and Inglis Buildings, Kenneth Martin’s Construction in Aluminum resides on Trumpington Street in Cambridge. The piece represents a formula used in jet propulsion and was made in Department workshops with the assistance of Cambridge engineers. It is part of Martin’s Oscillation series – works inspired by physics and music.

The work is included among 40 other sculptures given added protection, each designed to bring public spaces in England back to life after World War II.

Kenneth Martin (1905–1984) was an English painter and sculptor, who together with his wife Mary Martin and Victor Pasmore was a leading figure in the revival of Constructivism in the 1940s. Primarily Martin made mobiles save from the Oscillation sculptural series throughout the 1960s. These all consisted of bars stacked and sometimes progressing up in regular steps, at other times stopping or jumping. Martin likened this to the rhythms of jazz.