DCU hosts Women In Engineering event to mark Engineers Week 2024

11/03/2024

On 6 March, to mark the midpoint of Engineers Week 2024, the Faculty of Engineering and Computing hosted an event for staff and students that focused on the career paths and educational journeys of four exceptional members of the DCU staff and alumni community.

- Niamh Donnelly, a DCU Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering graduate, is the co-founder and Chief Robotics Officer of Akara Robotics. Niamh has achieved numerous accolades for her groundbreaking research in artificial intelligence, including winning national awards and being recognised globally as one of the top 50 women in robotics. In 2023, she was named Irish Tatler’s Women of the Year in STEM. Niamh spoke about transitioning from mechanical engineering into AI and robotics and the challenges she and the team at Akara Robotics have had to overcome.

Dr Jennifer Bruton, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Computing, completed her BEng in Electronic Engineering at DCU in 1992 and has spent over 30 years promoting engineering as a rewarding and impactful profession to young people. She has particularly focused on encouraging young women to consider engineering as a career. One of her key goals as the Dean is to ensure that young people (and students!) appreciate just how fun and creative engineering is, and how engineering is a key component for improving lives and society.

- Dr Leah Ridgway is an Assistant Professor in the DCU School of Electronic Engineering. Prior to their role at DCU, they worked as the Faculty Director for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion at the University of Nottingham, where they led the Faculty of Engineering to achieve the first-ever Gold Athena SWAN Charter mark for an engineering unit. They are a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) with a research focus on engineering education. Leah discussed how their childhood love of figuring out how things work inspired them to pursue a career in Engineering and how research-led teaching in engineering can inspire others to pursue an engineering career and experience that same joy.

- Assistant Professor Dr Éadaoin Carthy from the School of Mechanical and Mechanical Engineering completed her BSc in Physics with Biomedical Sciences at DCU, and since then has won multiple awards as a PhD candidate, including the Colin Barnes award and DCU Innovation award. Her main research areas include lab-on-a-disc and lab-on-a-chip for life science applications and biosensing/detection of pathogenic whole cell and nucleic acid analytes. Éadaoin spoke about her love of science from a young age and encouraged students to engage in multidisciplinary research.