IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year winners revealed

Ella Podmore (25) was awarded the prestigious title of IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year. Ella is a Materials Engineer for McLaren Automotive and is responsible for all the material investigations in the business across the development phases of the company’s supercars; from concept drawings to customers in the field. Balancing her time between experiments and leading technical meetings, Ella created this department from the ground-up and plans to demonstrate the importance of materials in the automotive industry even further.

On winning, Ella said: “I am absolutely honoured to have been chosen by the IET and the judges to be this year’s winner. Those who know and work with me recognise how passionate I am about my science and being able to talk about that and the amazing supercars I get to work on at McLaren. I want to encourage the next generation of engineers and scientists to push the boundaries of what’s possible.”

Denize Ivy Pilatra (21) received the IET Mary George Memorial Prize for Apprentices. Denize is an Apprentice Non-Destructive Examination Engineering Technician at BAE Systems Submarines and is responsible for ensuring the structural integrity of submarines, working alongside technicians confirming critical components are free from unwanted defects. Denize supports many educational events and received the award for her dedication to continuously improve and actively promote the endless possibilities within STEM to young girls.

Shrouk El-Attar (28), is an Electronic Engineer at Elvie and was awarded the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) Prize. Shrouk engineers smart tech that improves the lives of cis women and trans men, whilst breaking down barriers and smashing taboos. Shrouk has been a STEM Ambassador since 2011, teaching children about engineering solutions and most recently headed up a project, teaching maths to children of refugees.  

Finalists Bethany Probert, Melanie Jimenez and Neera Kukadia were all highly commended and will join our winners in taking on an ambassadorial role for the engineering and technology professions.

Our second ever Gender Diversity Ambassador Award was presented to Pam Wilson. The award recognises an individual’s work in achieving gender equality within the engineering industry. Pam supports the promotion of STEM whenever she can and actively mentors within her own company and externally and sees key skills for all future engineers to be problem-solving, knowledge sharing, balancing risks, process improvement and a continuous desire to learn and evolve in an ever-changing environment.

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.

These prestigious engineering industry 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.

As well as highlighting female engineering talent, the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year 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).

To watch the ceremony in full and find out more about the awards, please visit the IET YWE website. The search is now on to find our 2021 Young Woman Engineer of the Year, so if you feel you’ve got what it takes, please visit the YWE awards web page to apply.