C-Capture – developers of world-leading solutions for carbon dioxide removal – are supporting International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) today, June 23, helping to increase the profile of women in engineering at a time when they are still hugely under-represented in their profession.
INWED, led by the Women’s Engineering Society, increases visibility of women in engineering and promotes the sector as career choice to girls and young women. Only 16.5% of those working in engineering are female according to research published by EngineeringUK earlier this year. As the only platform of its kind, INWED plays an important role in encouraging gender diversity in the sector.
Claudia Hernandez, Process Engineer at C-Capture, said:
“As women in engineering we have not just the ability but the responsibility to teach the younger generation and to put options on the table they’ve never considered.”
As the only female from her school to go on to study science, and the only one to become an engineer, Claudia is passionate about supporting young women into engineering. She gives career talks at her former school and university, and mentors a female Chemical Engineering undergraduate. Claudia also oversees an internal programme that supports female colleagues with the challenges of working in STEM.
Claudia said:
“When you’re at the stage of thinking ‘What am I good at?’ What do I want to do?’ it’s shocking that there are inadequate references in STEM careers. I didn’t have any role models growing up. When a woman chooses engineering at college, people see it as ‘difficult’ or ‘alternative’. Why should that be?”
Rose McCarthy is a Senior Chemist at C-Capture and is also an advocate of supporting the younger generation into STEM careers. Rose delivered a STEM-careers talk at her former secondary school earlier this year, inspiring pupils to explore a career as a climate change chemist with several male and female students since applying for work experience at the chemical engineering firm.
Rose said:
“It’s so important that girls and young women are given the opportunity to make an informed choice. I was always really good at science at school, but it was difficult to know or to understand the options that were available to me for my future career. I wanted to do something to help redress that imbalance.”
The theme for this year’s INWED is ‘Inventors and Innovators’, celebrating the women working within engineering that are helping build towards a brighter future. As a developer of innovative carbon capture technology, C-Capture is proud to recognise the contribution that all the company’s female colleagues make in developing next generation cleantech to mitigate the impact of climate change.
Jannice Dye is C-Capture’s HR Manager and leads the company’s HR function and People Strategy.
Jannice said:
“Diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our strategic objectives. We want to create an inclusive culture where diversity is seen as a real opportunity to create value for the company. We champion differing approaches and points of view. It fuels our innovation as a developer of next-generation, carbon capture technology.
“We’re proud to recognise the phenomenal individual contributions that women across our engineering, scientific, administration and business teams make in enabling C-Capture to develop its technology to its maximum potential and play a critical role in building a brighter, more sustainable future.”
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