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THE DAILY TELEGRAPHWEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013 VI |

The Daily TelegraphCAREERS OF THE FUTURE | DIVERSITY

Injecting new talent into the equation

Science and technology sectors may traditionally have been dominated by men, but companies, and initiatives such as the Big Bang Fair, are increasingly directing the focus onto women by highlighting bright prospects and a wide range of career roles for them. The four women interviewed here explain how studying STEM subjects enabled them to carve satisfying careers in engineering, scientific research and IT, and talk about the reality of working in what may often seem to be a man’s world.

1 The vice presidentSally Martin, 47, is vice president of Shell’s strategic customer business and she admits that being a woman in a predominantly male environment can be tough. “When I was a front-line oil engineer in the Nineties, I discovered my colleagues had been to a soccer match together,” recalls Martin. “They didn’t mean to exclude me, but as I was the only woman on the team they’d assumed I wouldn’t be interested. That made me feel rather lonely.”

Martin, who joined Shell as an electrical engineering graduate in 1987, points out

that while around a third of her staff is now female, she is often still the only woman on senior management teams. “I sometimes wish there were more women involved because it changes the dynamic,” she says. “Teams become a bit less ego-dominated and more collaborative, and diversity means people are more ready to challenge ideas.”

But Martin has never felt disadvantaged by her gender. “It can be a bonus,” she adds. “People remember you, and male colleagues tend to look out for you.”

Companies like Shell are working hard to recruit and retain more women, and Martin is UK head of the Shell Women’s Network. “As well as benefiting from diversity, engineering and technology, companies can’t afford to be missing out on half the potential talent pool,” she stresses. “Most buying decisions in the UK are made by women, so having a workforce that’s representative of your marketplace is important.”

Society and the media need more female role models in engineering, Martin believes. Girls need to understand that engineers don’t spend all their time in hard hats and wellies, and that career breaks are just as acceptable as in other professions. “It can go right back to A-level choices, where girls often get poor career guidance,” she says.

The daughter of a naval architect, Martin had always wanted a career that involved “understanding how things worked and fixing them if they didn’t”. She joined Shell because “Energy is important. Oil matters to the economy, politics, even

global geopolitical stability. I wanted to really care about what I did and for it to make a difference. I do, and it does.”

2 The bug specialistHannah Moore, 28, can identify a species of maggot faster than almost anyone. This unusual accomplishment has just gained her a PhD in chemistry at Keele University, and could speed up the vital process of determining when a murder victim died.

Dead bodies are colonised by different species of flies in a known sequence, which helps indicate the time since death. But their maggots look almost identical, so identifying them can mean waiting days until they mature.

Moore’s method uses hydrocarbons on a maggot’s surface to determine its species and age within hours, so that the information can be passed to the police much sooner. “I’ve loved my PhD and hope to continue my research as a post-doctoral student, subject to funding,” she says. “Independent research gives you the chance to explore your curiosity, and applying it has been really rewarding.”

As a teenager Moore, who was more interested in horses than school, flunked her science GCSEs and did not take A-levels. But she managed to secure a place on Keele’s foundation course in science, found chemistry more interesting at university

Smart, driven and successful women are leading the way in their fields, finds Paul Bray

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more…

Marie Curie (1867-1934),

physicist and chemist

than she had at school, and took a BSc in chemistry and forensic science.

Moore doesn’t feel there’s anything unfeminine about studying creepy-crawlies. “I demonstrate my work in school labs and the girls tend to be more sensible,” she says. “The boys yell, ‘Ugh, it’s a maggot!’ but the girls take a real interest.”

3 The IT expertToo many girls are put off careers in IT because of its “geeky” image. “But it’s fun,” confirms Minno Dang, 23, an IT consultant at London-based software firm ThoughtWorks. “We’re

very outgoing and there’s a lot of team bonding — we go climbing together or join the same dance class. And we always work in pairs to test each other’s ideas.”

Dang’s team is an equal balance of male and female, which benefits the company’s collaborative approach. “I believe men and women think in different

but complementary ways,” she says.Dang read maths and computer

science at the University of Bristol. “Out of 100 students on the computing course, only nine were women, but it never felt awkward and I developed invaluable practical IT skills.”

After just two years at ThoughtWorks, Dang has a great deal of responsibility

and engages in programming, consultancy, business analysis and client interaction.

As well as working on commercial projects, she volunteered to help develop a mobile phone app for an international charity that enables field workers in Africa to reunite lost children with their families.

4 The safety engineerGemma Parkman, 30, set her sights on an engineering career at an early age. “I’ve always liked practical subjects,” she says. “My dad’s an engineer and he taught me to help fix his vintage cars and do DIY.”

As a senior safety engineer for Babcock International Group at Devonport Royal Dockyard in Plymouth, Parkman manages a team that develops safety assessments for materials handling. “It was the challenges that attracted me to safety, and the breadth of things you have to understand,” she says.

Parkman left school at 16 and took a four-year Modern Apprenticeship, then read mechanical engineering and design at Plymouth University. Since joining Babcock she has completed a masters degree and become a chartered engineer. “I knew it would further my career,” she says.

Parkman admits that entering such a male-dominated profession was intimidating at first. “We’re a handful of women among hundreds of men,” she says. “There’s a bit of, ‘What does a silly girl like you know?’ although it’s probably as much to do with our age as our gender. But you learn to laugh it off, and it has helped me improve my communication skills. It’s very character-building.”A

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