On Monday 16th June, a group of Year 12 girls interested in Aerospace Engineering came to Queen Mary for the day to learn more about the subject.

To get here, they had already entered a competition involving writing an essay and completing a problem solving task. For the Finalists Day, they also prepared a presentation exploring an area of Aerospace Engineering which interests them.

The event also included:

• A panel discussion with women in the Aerospace industry
• Meeting and talking to Aerospace engineers in industry as well as PhD, masters and undergraduate students and academics
• Getting hands-on in the Maker Space workshop
• Carrying out experiments in the wind and visualisation tunnels

At the end of the day, there were prizes for the best presentations and the group came together to meet Prof Hazel Screen, Head of the School of Engineering and Materials Science.

Thank you to Lily Board, PhD researcher in Fluids at University of Cambridge; Jivya Rajesh, Senior Engineer from MBDA and Kate Goldup, Lead Aerodynamicist at Alpine Formula One Team for sharing their experiences and judging the presentations.

Thank you also to Dr Kshitij Sabnis for organising the project, and all the academics who supported the event.

One of the finalists, Maria, said “Queen Mary School of Engineering and Materials Science hosted a fantastic informative open day style experience for us. We then presented our ideas to the judges and received fantastic feedback, allowing us to take advice for future public articulation!
Thank you to all the teachers, visitors who judged our presentations and everyone’s fantastic feedback which has largely built upon my confidence to approach future events like these, forming great connections and developing so many new interests!”

We had such a fun day meeting all these impressive young women and hope our team and guests inspired them to choose a career in Engineering.

We are grateful for the support of a Small Grant from the Centre for Public Engagement and the QMUL EDI Team (C&I Initiatives) to enable the competition to take place.