Emerging Talent Award for Engineering: 2017 winner announced

We are delighted to announce that Emilie Weaving (Shrewsbury High School, 2008) has won the GDST Emerging Talent Award for Engineering.

Emilie impressed the judges with her passion for engineering and motorcycles, and her determination to succeed in a career that is especially male dominated (even for engineering).

She is currently a Higher Apprentice at JCB Power Systems and is studying for her Mechanical Engineering degree at Sheffield Hallam University. However, Emilie’s passion truly lies with motorcycles, and in her spare time she has been a race technician with the British Superstock Championships. With this award she will be able to develop her own business and upgrade her workshop with machining equipment, helping to enable her goal of having a custom vehicle garage and deepen her involvement with motorcycle racing. She is keen to give girls confidence to pursue ‘alternative’ careers and raise awareness of engineering.

On winning the award Emilie said:

“This award will give me the opportunity to raise the profile of female mechanical engineers and technicians. I am very grateful to the GDST for awarding me this prize to help fund my career development by purchasing machining equipment for my workshop.”

A very close runner up was Leila Brown (Notting Hill and Ealing, 2011, photo right), who is on a three year training scheme as a Rehabilitation Engineer with the NHS.

Her work involves working with patients and designing solutions that will assist them with their health requirements. The panel made a grant for her to attend a conference (Oceania Seating Symposium) while she is on an elective in New Zealand, further broadening her knowledge and experience.

Leila commented, “this is an incredible opportunity to meet other clinicians, manufacturers and suppliers in the rehabilitation field, and I have no doubt that attending will help me in my career progression as well as in my current role. I am so grateful for this award, and cannot thank the judges and the GDST enough for making this wonderful opportunity a reality.”

We received a very high quality of applications and a special mention must go to Sakthy Selvakumaran, a Cambridge PHD student and founder of the Construck Scheme, who was also shortlisted.  

Thanks also go to our generous sponsors and judges, without whom the award would not be possible.