E-Paper
UK award for 5 Indian-origin women engineers
The theme for 2020 is ‘Sustainability’: celebrating female engineers who are making a significant contribution to achieving net zero carbon.
Five Indian-origin women engineers based in the UK are among ‘Top 50 Women in Engineering for 2020’ awards judged by a panel of industry experts on Tuesday – the International Women in Engineering Day.
The awards, now in its fifth year, seek to recognise the wealth of female talent within engineering. It is an annual celebration aligned with International Women in Engineering Day, which takes place on June 23, coordinated by the Women’s Engineering Society.
The theme for 2020 is ‘Sustainability’: celebrating female engineers who are making a significant contribution to achieving net zero carbon.
The five awardees are:
Ritu Garg: senior transport engineer, Arup. Garg’s work involves formulating and delivering sustainable transport solutions. She recently produced a paper for UK local authorities providing practical guidance on addressing climate emergency in transport. Garg is part of a global initiative helping national governments unlock the economic power of zero-carbon sustainable cities.
Barnali Ghosh: technical director, Mott MacDonnald. An experienced seismic engineer, Ghosh focuses on developing seismic resilience in infrastructure, using the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). She was seismic lead on a sustainable water project in Dhaka, which will supply drinking water to 4 million people and has undertaken research into the effects of climate change on anti-seismic devices.
Anusha Shah: director – resilient cities, Arcadis. A Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Shah supports organisations to meet net zero targets and become climate resilient. As UK’s Environment Agency account leader, she is supporting it to achieve its net zero target by 2030. She uses many different platforms to constantly raise climate change awareness.
Kusum Trikha: senior engineer, WSP. Trikha specialises in multi-million-pound low-carbon energy projects. She managed the multi-disciplinary design team for the 10.3 MW electric Birmingham Bio Power Plant renewable project, a biomass gasification plant in the UK, which effectively captures all the carbon dioxide it produces to generate clean electricity.
Chitra Srinivasan: real-time control software engineer, UK Atomic Energy Authority (UAEA). Srinivasan has worked on SDGs related to poverty eradication and solving climate crisis. Her work at the authority involves using research to produce zero carbon energy and work towards environmental sustainability.
Srinivasan said: “I am an upcoming engineer in fusion research and this achievement is highly encouraging for me…At UKAEA, I have the opportunity to research sustainable energy by developing computer codes to control the fuel inside fusion machines. We are copying the process that powers the Sun for greener electricity.”
On ‘Sustainability’ as the theme for this year’s awards, Elizabeth Donnelly of the Women’s Engineering Society added: “The 2019 Climate Emergency Declarations followed unprecedented weather conditions across the planet”.
“It will be engineers who will provide many of the solutions needed to address the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. We felt that it was the right time to showcase the amazing women who are already working on these issues.”
