Profile

I moved to Cambridge in 2017 after graduating from the University of Glasgow, and since then have been working in Cambridge Consultants, a product development and technology consultancy. Basically, I am an engineer for lots of different companies and projects that pay my company to do the work for them!

I do love my job, but it’s great fun to spend my free time in Cambridge. I regularly do hot yoga, climbing, drawing, and going for dinner with my friends. I play the violin (badly) and have a kitten called Groucho who lives in Glasgow with my family. I also enjoy cooking and trying to make my own toiletries from scratch!

Ireland has a special place in my heart because my grandparents are from Cork, and I was lucky enough to spend 6 months in Dublin at UCD during my degree, so I visit a lot! I have a bunch of friends in Ireland and I am a big fan of Irish culture and music (particularly Riverdance!).

At my work, I am very fortunate to be surrounded by interesting and very smart people. We talk all day about the cool things we are working on, asking each other for help, and working together to solve problems. Some days I will be looking at physics questions to predict the behaviour of a certain system, other days I will be designing a rig to test a product, or writing up reports for clients, or processing data, giving interviews to potential employees, working on fun videos for our social media, or writing speeches for conferences.

I like what I do because it is very varied, and I can do what interests me. I care a lot about teaching younger generations about engineering, because I enjoy my job so much, but I didn’t know what engineering was until I was about 17! Engineering is a great field because you can do so many different things, and there is a place for everyone to fit in somewhere. Working for a consultancy like mine gives you the flexibility to work on all sorts of products, with all sorts of people, and be able to take the time to go and talk to schools and universities as well.

I hope that soon you’ll be as excited about engineering as I am!

At my company, we already have a lot of support and money towards school outreach, so there’s not much use for the money at Cambridge Consultants. However, I used to be a part of lots of student societies when I was at university. They are basically clubs for students to work together to do something they care about and enjoy. I ran a society that focused on making sure women and girls felt welcome and supported in engineering education and jobs. There’s not many women in engineering right now, so I really want to make sure that we get more of them interested!

With the prize money, this society could pay to go to visit more schools and cover their transportation costs when they go, or allow them to buy props to use at the schools. Sometimes it’s easier to SHOW something rather than just talking about it! I would happily give them the money for these purposes as it is quite difficult for students to get this much money themselves.