Bristol engineer celebrated nationally as inspiration to future generation of female engineers

Twenty-eight-year-old Shrouk, who is an Electronic Engineer at Elvie, won the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) prize at the prestigious IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year virtual awards ceremony last night.

Shrouk engineers smart tech that improves the lives of cis women and trans men, whilst breaking down barriers and smashing taboos. On winning, she said: “I’m really proud to be representing Femtech engineering and Elvie. I love being part of a company that makes amazing tech to change the lives of millions of people around the world.

“I’m also proud to represent refugees. Refugees don’t have equal access to engineering in the UK, which is why I joined Student Action for Refugees to campaign for equal access. I am working to help create a more diverse, inclusive and more welcoming engineering community.”

The IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards celebrate women working in modern engineering – and aim to help change the perception that engineering is predominantly a career for men by banishing outdated engineering stereotypes of hard hats and dirty overalls.

As well as highlighting female engineering talent, these prestigious engineering industry awards seek to find role models who can help address the UK science and engineering skills crisis by promoting engineering careers to more girls and women. Just 12% of those working in engineering and technical occupations are women (source: Engineering UK).

Other winners include Ella Podmore (25), who won the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award, Denize Ivy Pilarta (21), who won the IET Mary George Memorial Prize for Apprentices and Pam Wilson who won the Gender Diversity Ambassador Award. Finalists Bethany Probert, Melanie Jimenez and Neera Kukadia were all highly commended.

Jo Foster, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager at the IET, said: “I’d like to congratulate our fantastic winners and finalists of this year’s awards. They are a real credit to the engineering profession and will make excellent role models to young girls who might be thinking about a career in engineering and technology.

“It’s vital we champion engineering careers to the next generation – it’s a diverse, creative and exciting career, which offers the opportunity to do something life – or even – world-changing.”

The winners were announced at the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year virtual awards ceremony on 4 March.

British Astronaut, Tim Peake made a surprise appearance at the end of the ceremony with a video message congratulating the winners and finalists and talking about the importance of the awards.

The YWE Awards are sponsored by BAE Systems, Boeing, BP, Collins Aerospace, Frazer-Nash, GCHQ, Leonardo UK, MBDA, Ofcom, Royal Air Force, Royal Mail, Teledyne e2v, Thales and Wiley.

To find out more information, please visit the IET YWE website.

You can also find out more about the awards and this year’s virtual ceremony by listening to the latest edition of our Engineering a Better World podcast, featuring our winner, Ella Podmore! 

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