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A WISE HEAD ON YOUNG SHOULDERS
Ex-student from The Red Maids'
School collects top engineering award
12th December 2003 — Helen Marson, originally
from Bristol, has collected one of the UK's highest
awards for women involved in Science, Engineering
and Technology. The WISE (Women Into Science and Engineering)
Excellence Award was presented to Helen by HRH The
Princess Royal, the Royal Patron of WISE, at a ceremony
at the Engineering Employers' Federation in London.
The award is presented to women judged to have played
a significant role in raising the profile of engineering
and sciences among young people in the UK.
Helen, who is currently senior process safety engineer
at global gases and chemicals company, Air Products,
explained, "I first got interested in engineering
at The Red Maids' School." She was inspired by
the work of her teacher Alison Jones, herself an old
girl of the school, who had worked on the development
of the Concorde Project at Rolls Royce. Alison described
Helen as 'The perfect physicist; from the word go,
when she walked into the lab, she looked like she
was an engineer."
Helen is an advocate for women in her profession,
she says "Engineering offers great opportunities
for development - in fact a growing number of women
work in engineering, although we are still a relatively
small minority. It can be a very exciting area to
work in and with the ongoing support of colleagues
and my manager I aim to do even more work to raise
the profile of engineering."
The WISE campaign has helped to double the percentage
of female engineering graduates from 7% in 1984 to
15% today.
Helen is Chair of the British Chemical Engineering
Contractors Association (BCECA) Graduate Committee.
It is her work with the BCECA - to encourage graduate
to choose engineering as a career - which has been
instrumental in her winning the prestigious WISE award.
Commenting on Helen's achievement, Joe Pietrantonio,
Air Products' vice president - engineering Europe,
said, "Helen is a great ambassador to promote
excellence in engineering and we are extremely proud
of her achievements."
Last year, Helen received the Karen Burt Memorial
award from the Women's Engineering society and was
voted onto the council of the Institution of Chemical
Engineers (IChemE), as an industry representative.
Helen was born in Bristol and studied at The Red
Maids' School in Bristol. Headmistress, Isabel Tobias
said "The Red Maids' School has a long tradition
of pupils going on to study engineering and science,
Helen's success is a part of this and we are delighted
for her." After graduating in Chemical Engineering
from Loughborough University, she joined Air Products
in 1997.
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