Women in industry awards

WOMEN IN INDUSTRY

AWARDS 2020

THE 2020 WOMEN IN INDUSTRY AWARDS SAW MORE NOMINATIONS THAN EVER BEFORE. ROADS & INFRASTRUCTURE SPEAKS TO EXCELLENCE IN ENGINEERING FINALIST JANE MACMASTER TO FIND OUT WHAT ENGINEERING MEANS TO HER.

While many celebrations this year have been unfortunately been cancelled or postponed, Prime Creative Media has continued what is normally one of the most exciting events in its calendar.

The 2020 Women in Industry awards will continue to take place across partner titles such as Roads & Infrastructure magazine.

This year nominations for the awards increased by 27 per cent on the previous year with a record number of individual businesses and organisations represented.

The award categories cover social leader of the year, rising star of the year, business development success of the year, industry advocacy, safety advocacy, mentor of the year, excellence in manufacturing, excellence in mining, excellence in engineering and excellence in transport.

Many notable women from the infrastructure and transport sectors were nominated and are finalists for awards. Roads & Infrastructure sits down with Jane MacMaster, a finalist in the excellence in engineering category and recently appointed Chief Engineer at Engineers Australia.

Ms. MacMaster says in school she had a love for maths and science but wasn’t considering engineering until an interview with the University of Sydney.

After obtaining her degree she worked with British Aerospace (now called BA Systems Australia) where she says her love of engineering was ignited.

“I think the most rewarding aspect of being an engineer is the ability to bring outcomes about. I really enjoy problem solving and finding solutions through careful design and thinking,” Ms. MacMaster says.

“There is so much engineers can contribute to the world with a problem solving and design skillset and mindset. It’s really rewarding to be faced with a problem, go through the design process for a solution that is going to work and then see that solution become a reality.”

One of the projects Ms. MacMaster is most proud of is working as part of a NATO team to design supersonic flight vehicles.

“Australia was a guest nation for that NATO project, and I got to work there on that project and others for 14 years,” Ms. MacMaster says.

“It was both rewarding and challenging, and it turned out to be where I learnt the most about not only good teamwork but also about what professional engineering means. That was an incredible experience and being part of that amazing team was such an opportunity.”

In her new role as Chief Engineer for Engineer’s Australia, Ms. MacMaster hopes to focus on three areas; strengthening the engineering identity, evolving and upholding the standards of the engineering profession and strengthening and broadening the influence and contribution of the engineering profession in society.

In her time working in the office of Prime Minister and Cabinet Ms. MacMaster developed a generalised conceptual model for the complex problem-solving skillset.

“The model I came up with helps non-engineers think how engineers would think when they are designing a solution to a problem, but you can apply it in a generalised, transferable way to interdisciplinary challenges,” she says.

This work is reflected in her goals for the future.

“I think there is a huge opportunity to strengthen and broaden the influence the engineering profession has more widely and again that is referring back to the transferable skillset and mindset we apply to technology. But I think there is huge contribution engineers have the potential to make more broadly through interdisciplinary challenges.”

Broadening the awareness of engineering across all of society is something Ms. MacMaster is passionate about, especially steering young people into an engineering career.

“If people want to contribute meaningfully to society there are so many ways you can do that but, for me engineering is about bringing outcomes about through careful design. It’s problem solving, it’s being creative, it’s being clever, but more than anything it is making real and meaningful change to the world,” she says.

To view the full list of finalists, visit the Women in Industry Awards webpage. Winners will be announced in the Women in Industry newsletter, as well as in Roads & Infrastructure.