This year’s INWED theme is ‘Together we engineer’ – presenting the opportunity to promote the work that women engineers across the globe are doing, uncover personal stories, systemic challenges and visions for the future.

Kate Carpenter is discipline lead for operational safety, supporting many strategic and local authority clients deliver an evidence-based approach to intervention design and network management.

Kate has lead safety governance work on smart motorway projects, Queensferry Crossing, and other projects for Transport Scotland, Welsh Government and TfL, as well as local authority Clients.

She is passionate about design and network management that support active travel for more sustainable and equal access to travel and healthy outcomes.

Kate Carpenter, CIHT Vice President, BEng CEng FICE FCIHT FSoRSA FSaRS Director of Operational Safety, Jacobs

What excites you most about being an engineer today? 

The opportunity to support highway authorities to make their existing and new roads safer, as well as more effective on a wider range of objectives: pollution, noise and vibration; active travel.

What is a common misconception about being a woman in your field? 

That women are ‘better at’ or ‘more interested in’ people than male engineers. I am very interested in people, as colleagues, road users and stakeholders, but could point to most of my peers as probably better at this than I am.

What does International Women in Engineering Day mean to you?  

I’ve always been wary of ‘women-only’ initiatives, but over time it’s become ever clearer to me that peoples’ thinking is not equal on many dimensions – not just gender or sex.  I’ve realized sometimes we need to rebalance things, and part of that is shining a light on the less-noticed, people who are excellent in their field, but who make less noise, get overlooked, in just the same way it’s very clear now that boys in the classroom get the bulk of the teacher’s attention.

What inspired you to become an engineer, what was your path into the field?  

It was not an early idea for me whereas some people knew this was their vocation very early in childhood.  I’ve always wanted to know how things work – as much our brains as in an engineering sense, and had a plan to study psychology and psychiatric nursing at university.   By 18 I realiszed that was not a good idea for me then, so after A levels, I paused for a bit, decided to be a child’s nanny for a year while I worked out what to do next.  A year became 4 years, before I realiszed I wanted a different intellectual challenge and saw an advert for a trainee/junior civil engineering technician at Bedfordshire County Council in the local paper.  I was excited by the idea of designing roads and bridges, got the job and feel very grateful for that opportunity.

Were there any mentors, role models, or experiences that shaped your career?

My father was a mechanical engineer, working in crane design; manual handling; forensic investigation. I saw the diversity of his work, aligned to his skills, give him job satisfaction and public benefit – that was my role model. Once I joined Bedfordshire County Council, I had many great advocates, including team leaders who encouraged me when I doubted if I was doing the right thing; who encouraged me to transfer from BTec to a degree course in order to become chartered.  Road safety engineers I worked with on complex highway problems taught me how their work is at the interface of the built environment and human psychology, and that inspired me to move from design of roads and bridges into road safety, and that’s been a good home for me in over 25 years, and I did a psychology degree to fill some gaps that engineering courses don’t cover.  Road user behaviour is not about physics and geometry, it’s about human factors and I wish we taught that more.

What does true inclusivity in engineering look like to you?  

It means everyone meeting their potential.  That might be a different route; a different way of working compared to other people.   I love the Ikaigai model – of a job that combines things we are good at; they we enjoy; that we can get paid for; and that the world needs.   We won’t love all our work all the time, and we all have to knuckle down and get through some parts of our experience, but the balance needs to be there.  
How do you think companies or institutions can better support women and other underrepresented groups in STEM? 
I think we need to spot talent and draw it out, to advocate for others, not leave every individual to climb their own path.  If people don’t have any experience or role models, we might need to step in – to say “I believe you’d be great at this role” or “why don’t you apply for this opportunity”.   If you don’t have the foundation you might assume you’re a bad fit for a role.  This is relevant for women, and other dimensions, for example social class.  We know that people from more working-class backgrounds can assume they don’t belong in certain roles, and there’s interesting research showing how less competent, more-privileged people can be very confident, while the more competent people without that family position are more likely to doubt themselves.

Do you feel that the engineering field has changed in terms of gender equity since you started? What still needs to change?

Yes, both in representation, and in recognition.  The numbers are still too skewed, and it’s often suggested women don’t want those roles, whereas it might be they have to choose between the role they aspire to and other sacrifices.  In covid we saw more levelling; in return to offices much of that progress could be lost.

What project or career highlight are you most proud of, and why? 

When I’ve contributed to projects, helped shape them to meet more than just capacity objectives, and you see the outcome.  When casualties fall as happened on Queensferry Crossing: an 80% improvement compared to the previous arrangement, that’s an amazing feeling.

What advice would you give to women just beginning their engineering career or are considering professional registration/qualification?  

I think it would be to not be afraid of being visible and to bring ideas about solutions when you spot problems.  Learn about organiszational process and structures;  volunteer for an extra role, make contacts, ask people what they love and loathe about their role, what they regret or would do differently in future.  Document what your role was, who you met (you might meet them again); what you learned; what you’d do differently.  Reflecting makes us think about others not just ourselves.

What is something you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?

I was lucky:  our office tracers said “don’t be too good at any one thing or you’ll get stuck there”.  I had a structured training programme of many work areas, which meant that wasn’t so likely, and I worked with many men who were encouraging and kind.

If you could design a program or policy to make engineering more inclusive, what would it be?  

I’d have the design and network management community look more like the community we serve.   Sheila Holden, former CIHT president said maybe 20 years ago: “buses only started being accessible when the community of people designing stops and buses started to look more like the people using them.”  I’m wary of quotas, but we’ve in effect had reverse quotas:   even when those applying are a diverse community; recruitment is not sufficiently balanced.   Trials concealing names and other details that show gender or ethnicity or faith for example show unconsciously we are less fair and equality-minded than we think.

If you could redesign a famous invention through the lens of accessibility and inclusion, what would it be and how? 

I think it would have to be the car:  mainly designed by men; crash test dummies were all male, I recall the children were little adult males (real children are not physiologically little adults).  Caroline Crado Perez remarkable book Invisible Women laid many facts out:   Women are shorter than men so have to poorer visibility of the road then men in a given car; they must sit closer to the steering wheel which means airbags can cause more injury. Women are physiologically different; they have different (and typically more serious) injuries than men.  Only the most expensive cars had seat and steering wheel adjustment until recently.  Mirrors may be less optimally placed.  Seat belts fall more awkwardly e.g. across the neck not shoulder.   Even when they are attended after a crash, they are less likely to be given tranexamic acid, the life-saving medication that prevents a fatal bleed, just the same as they are treated differently for a heart attack than men because their symptoms are different.   These things are all changing but too little too late, and while awareness is poor, practice will lag.

Has there been a moment in your career where you felt you had to challenge the status quo? What happened? 

My whole time in safety engineering has involved a lot of challenging long-standing assumptions and norms, even though we’ve had evidence countering that for a long time.   From predict and provide (many people still believe we can build our way out of congestion) to safe active travel, people don’t feel comfortable accepting that a lot of what we thought was wrong.

What unconscious bias about engineers or leadership surprised you the most when you entered the industry? 

I was unaware of bias at that time; I’ve mainly gained insight through hindsight.  I worked in an employer that was probably more equal than many at that time, but some individuals are more enlightened than others.

Statement

The opinions expressed are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the CIHT or its members. Neither the CIHT nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.