June 16, 2024 • 19 mins
2024 Northern Power Women Awards Future Lister, Dr Beth Barnes shares her journey into the world of engineering.
From her accidental discovery of civil engineering to her dedication to building inclusive spaces, Dr. Barnes provides valuable insights for listeners from all walks of life.
And find out how she founded the Durham Women's Engineering Society to create a safe space for women to discuss challenges and support each other.
Listen to learn:
- How we can create inclusive spaces within engineering
- The role of representation and mentorship in retaining women in engineering
- How to cope with feelings of 'mum guilt'
- Dr Beth's advice to her younger self
Sign up to our Power Platform to check out our events calendar here.
Keep up to date on the latest news from We Are Power : Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram & Facebook
Sign up to our newsletter.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello and welcome to the we Are Power podcast
Northern Power Women podcast.
For your career and your life,no matter what business you're
in, hello and welcome to the weAre Power podcast.
And this podcast is all abouthighlighting the brilliant role
(00:33):
models we have in and from theNorth, getting them on board to
have a wee chat about theirpersonal or professional stories
and hoping to pass on some ofthose top tips, advice, guidance
, strategies, hacks, whatever itmay be, that will help you,
whether it be your career, yourlife, whatever your adventure
that you are on.
And this week I'm very excitedto introduce Dr Beth Barnes, who
(00:54):
is Assistant Professor atDurham University, academic Lead
for Durham's University Women'sEngineering Society and 2024
Northern Power Women AwardsFuture Lister, beth.
Dr Beth Beth, welcome to thepodcast.
Thank you for having me, and wewere just chatting before,
weren't we?
And so there was a recentreport, which is the Engineering
UK report.
We know that women make up lessthan 20% of the engineering
(01:17):
sector and highlighted veryrecently in an Engineering UK
report which has seen the numberdrop from 16.5 to 15.7% of
women in engineering, and Ithink that equates to something
like 38,000.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Wow it feels like we're going backwards Nightmare.
Yeah, it's really, reallydisappointing to see, you know,
having joined the engineeringsector back in 2009, when I
started started at university tohave only seen it go increased
by about six and a half percentin that in that kind of 14 year
period is not a great increaseanyway and now to see it
(01:55):
slipping backwards again and tofind that we're actually having
a massive retention issue.
So we're finding that women inthe 35 to 44 age category are
now not stopping in engineering,and that ties up with the
professional registrationcouncils as well that are seeing
that women who have spent along time getting chartered,
becoming a chartered engineer,are then not actually sticking
(02:16):
with industry anyway.
They're deciding to leave.
So there is a huge retentionissue.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
And that is going to have a massive effect.
Isn't it on the?
The wider inequality across thesector, isn't it?
If we're particularly that agegroup, that 35 to 44?
We talk about attraction at thestart, but that's massively
going to impact, isn't it,across the whole sector.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, we've been making some real gains at kind
of the entry point.
So, you know, at university andin some ways for
apprenticeships, we are startingto see more women coming
through the pipeline.
But if that pipeline's leakyand they leave like kind of
leave halfway down, and then forme, looking forwards now, if
there's no role models, ifthere's very few women who are
kind of getting up to thosesenior levels and smashing the
(02:57):
glass ceiling, then that'sreally difficult to kind of look
for inspiration and know whichpathway I might be able to take
and can I do this or can I dothat or how do I do that?
There's, you know, there's notnecessarily someone to ask how
do you do something.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
And where did you start?
Who were your role models asyou entered the world of
engineering and then into civilengineering and now assistant
professor at Durham?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah.
So I always describe myself asan accidental civil engineer.
So I I wish I could say, oh, Ireally wanted to be an engineer
all my life.
I did, from a young age, have afascination with my dad's
cement mixer.
I used to spend so much time,anything I could put in the
cement mixer, put my hard hat onand we'd mix it up.
But then that kind of fell intothe distant past.
(03:41):
And when I was looking foruniversity didn't.
At that point I didn't reallyrealize there was other options.
So it was do your A-levels, goto university.
And I'd done maths, chemistry,physics, so you know, very
science and maths based.
I thought I was just going togo and do a straight science
degree.
I thought I was going to dosomething like chemistry.
(04:03):
And I kept sitting in thesetalks and thinking, gosh, this
looks really dull, this is notwhat I want to do.
And my partner, who's nowactually my husband we went to
Edinburgh together to do theopen day and he said oh, I'm
going to go and sit in thiscivil engineering talk have you
got anything to go to?
At the same time and I was like, oh no, I don't, I'll just come
and sit with you.
And it was like my eurekamoment.
(04:24):
I was like, oh no, I don't,I'll just come and sit with you.
And it was like my eurekamoment.
I was like, oh, this is whatI've been looking for.
It's got the maths, it's gotthe science, but it's also quite
hands on, it's vocational.
I can see how I'll be applyingmy skills to a real world
problem.
So yeah, I always term myselfthis accidental civil engineer,
because had I not gone to thattalk, I probably wouldn't have
found it.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It.
Had I not gone to that talk, Iprobably wouldn't have found it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
It's all literally about being at the right place
at the right time.
And then how did you sort oftransition into your, the role
that you've got now?
So I did a four-year degree, soI left university with a
master's in engineering and haddone a few summer placements so
I got a job.
I went into industry based onthose summer placements but I
just didn't really find theright fit.
I had three jobs in three years, which I'm not ashamed of, you
know.
(05:10):
I knew when a job was not rightfor me and you know when I
wasn't developing and I neededsomething new and I went and
found it.
And I always say that to mystudents.
Now it's not something to beashamed of.
You know.
In the past it was you get ajob, you stay in this job.
Not something to be ashamed of,you know.
In the past it was you get ajob, you stay in this job.
Um, whereas now I think we haveso much more flexibility and
can kind of identify forourselves.
(05:31):
You know this isn't right forme and I'm gonna look for
something different.
So, yeah, I spent three years inindustry, um, I gained a lot of
skills, but I just didn't feellike it fit it.
Just it wasn't kind ofchallenging me enough.
So I decided I want to do a PhD.
So I decided, you know, forsome mad reason, I wanted to go
(05:52):
and study again.
So in 2016, I went back touniversity to start studying for
my PhD and then, leading onfrom that, I ended up thinking
do you know what?
I don't want to go back toindustry right now.
I want to try and give it acrack at being an educator
myself.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So kind of went down the academic pathway and talk to
us about your research, becauseyou work now around in a.
This is this blows my mind, soI'm gonna have to read this out
but you deal around inequalitiesin computational models of
city-scale evacuations duringemergency scenarios.
What does that mean?
Obviously it's around emergencyscenario planning, but what
(06:33):
does it mean?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Okay.
So when we have a hazard or adisaster, we don't know how
people are going to react.
So one way that we can test howpeople might react is to do
what's known as a real lifesimulation.
And you'll have seen them onthe news where the police and
the ambulance they kind of say,right, we're going to pretend
that the tubes crashed, and thenwe're going to have these
(06:55):
hundred people and they're goingto have X injuries, and then
we're going to have thesehundred people and they're going
to have X injuries and we'retesting the blue light response
and how do they deal with thatscenario, which is brilliant
because our emergency personnelknow exactly what to do.
But it's really reallyexpensive, really time consuming
, so we can only kind of do onea year if we're lucky.
(07:15):
The other option is to do what'sknown as a tabletop scenario.
So you kind of work throughgoing.
You can do option A, b or C,you choose one of them and then
you can do option A, b and C andyou kind of see what happens as
you go through.
It's a bit like role play,which again is a way of testing
the emergency response, butyou've got no real people
involved in that.
So what my work is about iscreating these computer models
(07:40):
which allow us to make lots andlots of changes really quickly,
really easily, without a hugecost implication, and we can
then make sure that thatpopulation that's included is
actually representative.
So you know, we are taking intoaccount ethnicity, we're taking
into account sex, we're takinginto account mobility and we're
actually making sure we can seewhat happens.
(08:02):
What if people aren't compliant?
What if people don't want to dowhat the police say?
What effect does that have?
And so we can try and test lotsand lots of different outcomes.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
My gosh.
I mean I'm working on some ofthose scenarios.
If this equals this, then thathappens.
Then go here.
That sounds.
It sounds pretty stressful.
How, how can?
How do you sort of come outsideof your work environment and
not take that with you becauseit must be constantly in your
head as your scenario plan?
How do you switch off from that?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
well, I mean, I have two small children so they take
a lot of time and you know, theyknow if you're not paying
attention fully.
You know, even this morning mylittle boy was like mummy, put
your phone down, I'm talking toyou.
I was like, okay, I'll do asI'm told, um, so yeah, they are
a really good way to to kind ofhelp me switch off and kind of
(08:57):
focus on.
You know, they're so good atfinding the joy in the world and
reminding you of like thelittle things.
You know they're always thereto tell you they've seen an
aeroplane in the sky or there'sa ladybird on the floor.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And you know, sometimes we just forget about
those as adults, to just reallyrelish those little moments, and
we talk a lot don't we about,oh, having it all and work-life
balance, and recently we've beenkind of a sort of more alluding
to sort of like harmony asopposed to work-life balance,
because I think a balance isalways going to shift one way or
another.
There's me trying to say thatto an engineer.
(09:30):
Anyway, I'm at my comfort zonenow, but how, what?
What advice do you do you haveout there, um, to you know,
working parents in, whether theybe in academia or engineering
or whatever sector.
To be honest, what?
What is that balance other thanlisten, listen to your son or
listen to your voice.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I mean, I think part of it is about picking your
battles and kind of going do youknow, what does it matter if
the house is spotlessly clean?
No, you know, we've also decidedto kind of outsource some
things.
So you know, I couldn't surviveeach week if the cleaner didn't
come and clean for us.
You know that would takeanother couple of hours out of
my week, which I just don't have, and I think actually we should
(10:10):
shout out a little bit moreabout that.
You know, I don't have it all,because other people are helping
me with some of the bits Ican't do for myself.
And I think there's a lotaround mum guilt and kind of, as
you know, as a parent or acarer, feeling guilty about
having to use kind of afterschool clubs and breakfast clubs
.
But actually my little boyabsolutely loves them and my
(10:33):
little girl loves nursery andthey're absolutely thriving from
it and they get to do thingsthat you know I don't have the
time or capacity to do with them, and and that's really
wonderful and that should becelebrated as well.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
And going back to sort of your work at Durham.
One of the things that you'vedone is actually you set up the,
the Durham Women's EngineeringSociety, and you're also
co-chair of the Tees andTyneside Women in Engineering
Society cluster.
Why did you do this?
I know we've talked aboutnumbers and statistics, but why
did you decide that?
(11:06):
You know what I'm going to dothis.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
When I moved to Durham, there was something
missing and it was this sense ofcommunity.
And what we found in our very,very first year was suddenly
people were able to haveconversations and it was like a
really safe space to ask reallylike honest and open questions.
You know, people could say buthow do you have a family and a
(11:30):
career as an engineer?
Or how do you manage themenopause?
Or you know, how do you managebeing chronically ill and
working as an engineer?
And they never had that spacebefore to ask difficult and
honest questions and get a realanswer from a real person.
And so I just really wanted tocreate that space for them.
And it's nice now that it'sevolved into we've got a little
(11:51):
committee and you know they'reall so supportive of each other
and oh, I'll help you with this.
And oh, you've got theapplication.
Can I read over it?
And it's just really nice tosee how supportive and inclusive
it is.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
And you talked and we talked earlier, didn't we,
about the statistics around theEngineering UK report.
What do you think are theopportunities through both your
sort of societies, if you like,and the clusters that you're
part of?
What do you think are theopportunities that are ahead
that can try and help, or lookat some of that retention issues
?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
I think a lot of it now has to rely on allies.
Like you know, it can't just bethe women in the room doing
this.
You know we've been doing thisfor a long time, as have other
marginalized groups, andactually what to get a real step
change now?
You know, we really need someallyship and to kind of get some
big people and big names andcompanies to go.
(12:43):
Do you know what?
We're going to try?
Something really radical, we'regoing to do something really
different.
We're going to look at thisleaky pipeline and we're going
to ask the questions and we'regoing to have these difficult
conversations and work out whatcan we do, how can we retain
these women?
You know, is it a child care anda flexible working issue?
Um, is it money?
Is it progress?
(13:04):
You know, is it mentors?
Like you know, I thinkmentorship has a a real place
within this conversation.
There's not enough people aheadof me to ask to be mentors.
The female professor in ourdepartment is trying to mentor
all the young women and theyoung women academics are in the
department and she's only gotso much capacity.
(13:26):
So we kind of need more mentorsand more allies within that
mentor space as well.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I couldn't agree more , I don't think, you know, I
think that the mentors,especially within your sector,
it's it's trying to reallyunearth, even if they're sort of
not in your area or region.
It's it's kind of trying tofind more, isn't it?
And I think the allyshipadvocacy beat is is something
we've.
We launched our advocacy listlast year, or this year, shall I
say, alongside the power in thefuture list, and it's
(13:55):
interesting, I always think,gosh, why we've always talked
about northern power, womenbeing all genders.
So I don't know why we didn'tdo it earlier, but for me, it's
about how do we really make thatmore?
It's action orientated asopposed to.
You know, I was six dollars forthe pin badge, you know it's
about doing things and like,like you said, to your point,
it's it's different things.
(14:15):
Different things will work fordifferent people, won't they?
There's no, there's no one sizefits or solution.
What are you most proud of?
Uh, within the society, um,that that you've seen over the
years, or something that's likereally stood out to you, that go
, oh, my gosh, that would nothave happened.
Or I'm so proud that we didthis because this happened.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I think probably some of the like the, the bigger.
Like once a year we try and doa bigger event, so that involves
like career speed networking,and this year we did a panel
discussion as well.
Um, and the panel discussionparticularly was really really
honest and raw and open and itwas just wonderful to see you
(14:53):
know that I'd brought in 14external speakers and then our
students and for everyone to sitthere and listen to this panel
and I felt like it justresonated with everybody.
You know, everyone could takesomething away from the panel,
whether you're young, old, male,female, it didn't matter.
There was something that youcould pick out and kind of think
, oh wow, that's reallywonderful.
(15:14):
You know, I want to do more oflike that, or aren't they
amazing for persevering whenthings were difficult, and that
was just really wonderful tokind of see it come whole circle
and everyone takes somethingaway from the room.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I'm a big fan of that .
Oh so we always talk about ourtote bag moment.
You know what is that phrase.
What's that?
Some people?
They'll come out with somethinglike, oh my goodness, that
needs to be on a t-shirt or atote bag.
What do you really hope toachieve?
Have you set yourself any sortof personal kind of goals or
objectives through the widerwork you're doing?
(15:48):
So you've got your societies,you've got your work within the
university, but this is reallykey for you promoting that
equality, diversity andinclusion, both across
engineering and academia.
Two for one there, dr Beth.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
So yeah, so I do.
I am on a research grant at theminute and we are looking at
EDI interventions within theenergy industry.
So we've created like a bespokefellow program where they come
and do our training for aboutsix months and then they do an
individual research projectwhere they're then targeting
putting in some sort of tangibleintervention within their
(16:24):
workplace or higher educationinstitution to then hopefully
see some impact of it.
And I think that's going to bethe foundation, hopefully, of
where my career goes forwards,because I think this will give
us a really good kind of liketoolkit, a list of things that
have worked really well that wecan then hopefully not only put
in across the energy industrybut also hopefully expand to the
(16:47):
wider engineering kind ofsector and kind of say look,
we've got these case studies,this really worked well at
retention and this really workedwell with apprenticeships, and
I really hope that this willdrive forward some more
impactful change, but on a muchwider scale.
I love that that's.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It's true, knowledge, knowledge.
There isn't it?
That knowledge exchange, andit's in its all forms.
So everything you're doing herein the future is going to be so
transferable.
And finally, what is that onepiece of advice that you would
give to your younger self, youryounger engineer, your younger
Beth, who didn't go into thatlecture theatre that one day to
listen about civil engineering,who was maybe a bit unsure as to
(17:29):
what to do?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
next or where to go.
I mean, I think I would say tomyself you know, look at how far
you'll come.
You know, I wasn't a massivelyconfident person at kind of 17,
18 years old, and I really cameout of my shell at university.
I kind of discovered my voiceand kind of what I wanted to use
it for, and I think that's itabout being scared of things but
(17:53):
doing it anyway.
You know, feeling the fear andgoing, I'm going to really
harness this power of beingscared of something and put it
into doing something good anddoing something amazing and and
that's okay.
And actually it challenges meto feel scared of things and to
do things that are new anddifferent.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Absolutely Every day coming out of your comfort zone
in one way, shape or form, oryou know all of those things,
beth.
Dr Beth, thank you so much forjoining me on this podcast this
week.
So many top tips, so muchadvice and guidance.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having me.
I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Oh and thanks all of you for listening.
I know we get so many messagesfrom you going oh my goodness,
that advice was great.
How can we get involved what wecan we do?
So I hope this inspires ormotivates you to to make change,
take action, come out yourcomfort zone, as dr beth said,
um, and thank you so much.
Please stay connected on all ofour socials Facebook and
LinkedIn, we are power.
(18:51):
Tiktok, instagram and Twitterwe are power.
Underscore net.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
My name is Simone.
This is the we are powerpodcast.
A work goes on media production.
Hello and welcome to the we Are Power podcast
Northern Power Women podcast.
For your career and your life,no matter what business you're
in, hello and welcome to the weAre Power podcast.
And this podcast is all abouthighlighting the brilliant role
(00:33):
models we have in and from theNorth, getting them on board to
have a wee chat about theirpersonal or professional stories
and hoping to pass on some ofthose top tips, advice, guidance
, strategies, hacks, whatever itmay be, that will help you,
whether it be your career, yourlife, whatever your adventure
that you are on.
And this week I'm very excitedto introduce Dr Beth Barnes, who
(00:54):
is Assistant Professor atDurham University, academic Lead
for Durham's University Women'sEngineering Society and 2024
Northern Power Women AwardsFuture Lister, beth.
Dr Beth Beth, welcome to thepodcast.
Thank you for having me, and wewere just chatting before,
weren't we?
And so there was a recentreport, which is the Engineering
UK report.
We know that women make up lessthan 20% of the engineering
(01:17):
sector and highlighted veryrecently in an Engineering UK
report which has seen the numberdrop from 16.5 to 15.7% of
women in engineering, and Ithink that equates to something
like 38,000.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Wow it feels like we're going backwards Nightmare.
Yeah, it's really, reallydisappointing to see, you know,
having joined the engineeringsector back in 2009, when I
started started at university tohave only seen it go increased
by about six and a half percentin that in that kind of 14 year
period is not a great increaseanyway and now to see it
(01:55):
slipping backwards again and tofind that we're actually having
a massive retention issue.
So we're finding that women inthe 35 to 44 age category are
now not stopping in engineering,and that ties up with the
professional registrationcouncils as well that are seeing
that women who have spent along time getting chartered,
becoming a chartered engineer,are then not actually sticking
(02:16):
with industry anyway.
They're deciding to leave.
So there is a huge retentionissue.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
And that is going to have a massive effect.
Isn't it on the?
The wider inequality across thesector, isn't it?
If we're particularly that agegroup, that 35 to 44?
We talk about attraction at thestart, but that's massively
going to impact, isn't it,across the whole sector.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, we've been making some real gains at kind
of the entry point.
So, you know, at university andin some ways for
apprenticeships, we are startingto see more women coming
through the pipeline.
But if that pipeline's leakyand they leave like kind of
leave halfway down, and then forme, looking forwards now, if
there's no role models, ifthere's very few women who are
kind of getting up to thosesenior levels and smashing the
(02:57):
glass ceiling, then that'sreally difficult to kind of look
for inspiration and know whichpathway I might be able to take
and can I do this or can I dothat or how do I do that?
There's, you know, there's notnecessarily someone to ask how
do you do something.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
And where did you start?
Who were your role models asyou entered the world of
engineering and then into civilengineering and now assistant
professor at Durham?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah.
So I always describe myself asan accidental civil engineer.
So I I wish I could say, oh, Ireally wanted to be an engineer
all my life.
I did, from a young age, have afascination with my dad's
cement mixer.
I used to spend so much time,anything I could put in the
cement mixer, put my hard hat onand we'd mix it up.
But then that kind of fell intothe distant past.
(03:41):
And when I was looking foruniversity didn't.
At that point I didn't reallyrealize there was other options.
So it was do your A-levels, goto university.
And I'd done maths, chemistry,physics, so you know, very
science and maths based.
I thought I was just going togo and do a straight science
degree.
I thought I was going to dosomething like chemistry.
(04:03):
And I kept sitting in thesetalks and thinking, gosh, this
looks really dull, this is notwhat I want to do.
And my partner, who's nowactually my husband we went to
Edinburgh together to do theopen day and he said oh, I'm
going to go and sit in thiscivil engineering talk have you
got anything to go to?
At the same time and I was like, oh no, I don't, I'll just come
and sit with you.
And it was like my eurekamoment.
(04:24):
I was like, oh no, I don't,I'll just come and sit with you.
And it was like my eurekamoment.
I was like, oh, this is whatI've been looking for.
It's got the maths, it's gotthe science, but it's also quite
hands on, it's vocational.
I can see how I'll be applyingmy skills to a real world
problem.
So yeah, I always term myselfthis accidental civil engineer,
because had I not gone to thattalk, I probably wouldn't have
found it.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It.
Had I not gone to that talk, Iprobably wouldn't have found it.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
It's all literally about being at the right place
at the right time.
And then how did you sort oftransition into your, the role
that you've got now?
So I did a four-year degree, soI left university with a
master's in engineering and haddone a few summer placements so
I got a job.
I went into industry based onthose summer placements but I
just didn't really find theright fit.
I had three jobs in three years, which I'm not ashamed of, you
know.
(05:10):
I knew when a job was not rightfor me and you know when I
wasn't developing and I neededsomething new and I went and
found it.
And I always say that to mystudents.
Now it's not something to beashamed of.
You know.
In the past it was you get ajob, you stay in this job.
Not something to be ashamed of,you know.
In the past it was you get ajob, you stay in this job.
Um, whereas now I think we haveso much more flexibility and
can kind of identify forourselves.
(05:31):
You know this isn't right forme and I'm gonna look for
something different.
So, yeah, I spent three years inindustry, um, I gained a lot of
skills, but I just didn't feellike it fit it.
Just it wasn't kind ofchallenging me enough.
So I decided I want to do a PhD.
So I decided, you know, forsome mad reason, I wanted to go
(05:52):
and study again.
So in 2016, I went back touniversity to start studying for
my PhD and then, leading onfrom that, I ended up thinking
do you know what?
I don't want to go back toindustry right now.
I want to try and give it acrack at being an educator
myself.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So kind of went down the academic pathway and talk to
us about your research, becauseyou work now around in a.
This is this blows my mind, soI'm gonna have to read this out
but you deal around inequalitiesin computational models of
city-scale evacuations duringemergency scenarios.
What does that mean?
Obviously it's around emergencyscenario planning, but what
(06:33):
does it mean?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Okay.
So when we have a hazard or adisaster, we don't know how
people are going to react.
So one way that we can test howpeople might react is to do
what's known as a real lifesimulation.
And you'll have seen them onthe news where the police and
the ambulance they kind of say,right, we're going to pretend
that the tubes crashed, and thenwe're going to have these
(06:55):
hundred people and they're goingto have X injuries, and then
we're going to have thesehundred people and they're going
to have X injuries and we'retesting the blue light response
and how do they deal with thatscenario, which is brilliant
because our emergency personnelknow exactly what to do.
But it's really reallyexpensive, really time consuming
, so we can only kind of do onea year if we're lucky.
(07:15):
The other option is to do what'sknown as a tabletop scenario.
So you kind of work throughgoing.
You can do option A, b or C,you choose one of them and then
you can do option A, b and C andyou kind of see what happens as
you go through.
It's a bit like role play,which again is a way of testing
the emergency response, butyou've got no real people
involved in that.
So what my work is about iscreating these computer models
(07:40):
which allow us to make lots andlots of changes really quickly,
really easily, without a hugecost implication, and we can
then make sure that thatpopulation that's included is
actually representative.
So you know, we are taking intoaccount ethnicity, we're taking
into account sex, we're takinginto account mobility and we're
actually making sure we can seewhat happens.
(08:02):
What if people aren't compliant?
What if people don't want to dowhat the police say?
What effect does that have?
And so we can try and test lotsand lots of different outcomes.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
My gosh.
I mean I'm working on some ofthose scenarios.
If this equals this, then thathappens.
Then go here.
That sounds.
It sounds pretty stressful.
How, how can?
How do you sort of come outsideof your work environment and
not take that with you becauseit must be constantly in your
head as your scenario plan?
How do you switch off from that?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
well, I mean, I have two small children so they take
a lot of time and you know, theyknow if you're not paying
attention fully.
You know, even this morning mylittle boy was like mummy, put
your phone down, I'm talking toyou.
I was like, okay, I'll do asI'm told, um, so yeah, they are
a really good way to to kind ofhelp me switch off and kind of
(08:57):
focus on.
You know, they're so good atfinding the joy in the world and
reminding you of like thelittle things.
You know they're always thereto tell you they've seen an
aeroplane in the sky or there'sa ladybird on the floor.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And you know, sometimes we just forget about
those as adults, to just reallyrelish those little moments, and
we talk a lot don't we about,oh, having it all and work-life
balance, and recently we've beenkind of a sort of more alluding
to sort of like harmony asopposed to work-life balance,
because I think a balance isalways going to shift one way or
another.
There's me trying to say thatto an engineer.
(09:30):
Anyway, I'm at my comfort zonenow, but how, what?
What advice do you do you haveout there, um, to you know,
working parents in, whether theybe in academia or engineering
or whatever sector.
To be honest, what?
What is that balance other thanlisten, listen to your son or
listen to your voice.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I mean, I think part of it is about picking your
battles and kind of going do youknow, what does it matter if
the house is spotlessly clean?
No, you know, we've also decidedto kind of outsource some
things.
So you know, I couldn't surviveeach week if the cleaner didn't
come and clean for us.
You know that would takeanother couple of hours out of
my week, which I just don't have, and I think actually we should
(10:10):
shout out a little bit moreabout that.
You know, I don't have it all,because other people are helping
me with some of the bits Ican't do for myself.
And I think there's a lotaround mum guilt and kind of, as
you know, as a parent or acarer, feeling guilty about
having to use kind of afterschool clubs and breakfast clubs
.
But actually my little boyabsolutely loves them and my
(10:33):
little girl loves nursery andthey're absolutely thriving from
it and they get to do thingsthat you know I don't have the
time or capacity to do with them, and and that's really
wonderful and that should becelebrated as well.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
And going back to sort of your work at Durham.
One of the things that you'vedone is actually you set up the,
the Durham Women's EngineeringSociety, and you're also
co-chair of the Tees andTyneside Women in Engineering
Society cluster.
Why did you do this?
I know we've talked aboutnumbers and statistics, but why
did you decide that?
(11:06):
You know what I'm going to dothis.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
When I moved to Durham, there was something
missing and it was this sense ofcommunity.
And what we found in our very,very first year was suddenly
people were able to haveconversations and it was like a
really safe space to ask reallylike honest and open questions.
You know, people could say buthow do you have a family and a
(11:30):
career as an engineer?
Or how do you manage themenopause?
Or you know, how do you managebeing chronically ill and
working as an engineer?
And they never had that spacebefore to ask difficult and
honest questions and get a realanswer from a real person.
And so I just really wanted tocreate that space for them.
And it's nice now that it'sevolved into we've got a little
(11:51):
committee and you know they'reall so supportive of each other
and oh, I'll help you with this.
And oh, you've got theapplication.
Can I read over it?
And it's just really nice tosee how supportive and inclusive
it is.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
And you talked and we talked earlier, didn't we,
about the statistics around theEngineering UK report.
What do you think are theopportunities through both your
sort of societies, if you like,and the clusters that you're
part of?
What do you think are theopportunities that are ahead
that can try and help, or lookat some of that retention issues
?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
I think a lot of it now has to rely on allies.
Like you know, it can't just bethe women in the room doing
this.
You know we've been doing thisfor a long time, as have other
marginalized groups, andactually what to get a real step
change now?
You know, we really need someallyship and to kind of get some
big people and big names andcompanies to go.
(12:43):
Do you know what?
We're going to try?
Something really radical, we'regoing to do something really
different.
We're going to look at thisleaky pipeline and we're going
to ask the questions and we'regoing to have these difficult
conversations and work out whatcan we do, how can we retain
these women?
You know, is it a child care anda flexible working issue?
Um, is it money?
Is it progress?
(13:04):
You know, is it mentors?
Like you know, I thinkmentorship has a a real place
within this conversation.
There's not enough people aheadof me to ask to be mentors.
The female professor in ourdepartment is trying to mentor
all the young women and theyoung women academics are in the
department and she's only gotso much capacity.
(13:26):
So we kind of need more mentorsand more allies within that
mentor space as well.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I couldn't agree more , I don't think, you know, I
think that the mentors,especially within your sector,
it's it's trying to reallyunearth, even if they're sort of
not in your area or region.
It's it's kind of trying tofind more, isn't it?
And I think the allyshipadvocacy beat is is something
we've.
We launched our advocacy listlast year, or this year, shall I
say, alongside the power in thefuture list, and it's
(13:55):
interesting, I always think,gosh, why we've always talked
about northern power, womenbeing all genders.
So I don't know why we didn'tdo it earlier, but for me, it's
about how do we really make thatmore?
It's action orientated asopposed to.
You know, I was six dollars forthe pin badge, you know it's
about doing things and like,like you said, to your point,
it's it's different things.
(14:15):
Different things will work fordifferent people, won't they?
There's no, there's no one sizefits or solution.
What are you most proud of?
Uh, within the society, um,that that you've seen over the
years, or something that's likereally stood out to you, that go
, oh, my gosh, that would nothave happened.
Or I'm so proud that we didthis because this happened.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I think probably some of the like the, the bigger.
Like once a year we try and doa bigger event, so that involves
like career speed networking,and this year we did a panel
discussion as well.
Um, and the panel discussionparticularly was really really
honest and raw and open and itwas just wonderful to see you
(14:53):
know that I'd brought in 14external speakers and then our
students and for everyone to sitthere and listen to this panel
and I felt like it justresonated with everybody.
You know, everyone could takesomething away from the panel,
whether you're young, old, male,female, it didn't matter.
There was something that youcould pick out and kind of think
, oh wow, that's reallywonderful.
(15:14):
You know, I want to do more oflike that, or aren't they
amazing for persevering whenthings were difficult, and that
was just really wonderful tokind of see it come whole circle
and everyone takes somethingaway from the room.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I'm a big fan of that .
Oh so we always talk about ourtote bag moment.
You know what is that phrase.
What's that?
Some people?
They'll come out with somethinglike, oh my goodness, that
needs to be on a t-shirt or atote bag.
What do you really hope toachieve?
Have you set yourself any sortof personal kind of goals or
objectives through the widerwork you're doing?
(15:48):
So you've got your societies,you've got your work within the
university, but this is reallykey for you promoting that
equality, diversity andinclusion, both across
engineering and academia.
Two for one there, dr Beth.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
So yeah, so I do.
I am on a research grant at theminute and we are looking at
EDI interventions within theenergy industry.
So we've created like a bespokefellow program where they come
and do our training for aboutsix months and then they do an
individual research projectwhere they're then targeting
putting in some sort of tangibleintervention within their
(16:24):
workplace or higher educationinstitution to then hopefully
see some impact of it.
And I think that's going to bethe foundation, hopefully, of
where my career goes forwards,because I think this will give
us a really good kind of liketoolkit, a list of things that
have worked really well that wecan then hopefully not only put
in across the energy industrybut also hopefully expand to the
(16:47):
wider engineering kind ofsector and kind of say look,
we've got these case studies,this really worked well at
retention and this really workedwell with apprenticeships, and
I really hope that this willdrive forward some more
impactful change, but on a muchwider scale.
I love that that's.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It's true, knowledge, knowledge.
There isn't it?
That knowledge exchange, andit's in its all forms.
So everything you're doing herein the future is going to be so
transferable.
And finally, what is that onepiece of advice that you would
give to your younger self, youryounger engineer, your younger
Beth, who didn't go into thatlecture theatre that one day to
listen about civil engineering,who was maybe a bit unsure as to
(17:29):
what to do?
Speaker 2 (17:29):
next or where to go.
I mean, I think I would say tomyself you know, look at how far
you'll come.
You know, I wasn't a massivelyconfident person at kind of 17,
18 years old, and I really cameout of my shell at university.
I kind of discovered my voiceand kind of what I wanted to use
it for, and I think that's itabout being scared of things but
(17:53):
doing it anyway.
You know, feeling the fear andgoing, I'm going to really
harness this power of beingscared of something and put it
into doing something good anddoing something amazing and and
that's okay.
And actually it challenges meto feel scared of things and to
do things that are new anddifferent.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Absolutely Every day coming out of your comfort zone
in one way, shape or form, oryou know all of those things,
beth.
Dr Beth, thank you so much forjoining me on this podcast this
week.
So many top tips, so muchadvice and guidance.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having me.
I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Oh and thanks all of you for listening.
I know we get so many messagesfrom you going oh my goodness,
that advice was great.
How can we get involved what wecan we do?
So I hope this inspires ormotivates you to to make change,
take action, come out yourcomfort zone, as dr beth said,
um, and thank you so much.
Please stay connected on all ofour socials Facebook and
LinkedIn, we are power.
(18:51):
Tiktok, instagram and Twitterwe are power.
Underscore net.
Thank you so much for joiningme.
My name is Simone.
This is the we are powerpodcast.
A work goes on media production.
Popular Podcasts
1. Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
2. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
3. Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.