BDA Supports INWED 2019

June 20, 2019

International Women in Engineering Day (INWED19) – taking place 23 June 2019 – is an international awareness campaign designed to raise the profile of women in engineering and focuses attention on the amazing career opportunities available to girls in this exciting industry. This year as well as celebrating its sixth year, INWED is also celebrating 100 years of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) and to help support the initiative the British Drilling Association (BDA) is celebrating some of the outstanding women that have chosen the drilling and geotechnical sectors for their engineering careers. It is hoped that the brief overview of their job roles and experience may help inspire more women to consider engineering, or even drilling, as great career choice full of excitement, opportunity and reward.

Sarah Grieves is Senior Geoenvironmental Engineer at Dunelm Geotechnical & Environmental. Sarah is an experienced Geoenvironmental Engineer, with twelve years’ experience in environmental and geotechnical projects, responsible for project managing geotechnical and environmental site investigations, liaising with the Environment Agency, the Coal Authority, Local Authorities, Clients and Contractors. Sarah is also responsible for producing detailed foundation schedules, contamination assessments and writing interpretative reports including slope stability analysis and undertaking foundation design.  Sarah is experienced in logging both soils and rocks to BS5930 and EN ISO.

Laura Hoath is an Environmental Scientist at Wardell Armstrong, where she has a long history of working in the Ground Engineering sector, specialised in Contaminated Land. She has worked on projects that include the production of Phase 1 desk studies, supervision and coordination of Phase 2 intrusive investigations and the supervision of hazardous waste management and non-licensable asbestos work.

Jennifer Smedley is an Engineering Geologist, at Wardell Armstrong and is involved in a wide variety of projects both office and site based. Work includes ground engineering projects that form desk-based coal mining risk assessments and desk studies, to management and reporting of on-site ground investigation and drill and grout projects. She also has experience in waste management from tender and bid reporting to on-site cell construction and drilling works. Working on site is an important part of being an Engineering Geologist and is provides Jennifer with vital experience which will continue to help on future challenging projects.

Bryony Osbourn is a Graduate Hydrogeologist at Mott MacDonald working in the water resources industry, currently on site supervising the drilling, development and test pumping of two new drinking water abstraction boreholes for Severn Trent Water. Her duties involve supervision and logging of drill sediments during drilling, followed by geophysics, step and constant rate tests to determine both the well and aquifer properties once the borehole has been completed. Other duties include groundwater monitoring of the surrounding area, throughout the process and groundwater quality sampling at various stages.

Hannah Davies is Project Engineer at Cementation Skanska and is currently on Cementation’s graduate development scheme, where she can be involved in all aspects of piling and ground engineering projects, from work winning and design through to managing construction on site. Presently she is on placement with the in-house design team putting together geotechnical designs for tenders and projects that Cementation has secured. Hannah takes initial site investigation data to assess the ground conditions and uses this along with other project information such as structural loadings, drawings and known site constraints to create an engineered solution. Hannah liaises with both the estimating and operational teams, to ensure the solutions are practical, innovative and sustainable in order to meet the client’s needs in the best possible way.

Emily Wood is a Geotechnical Engineer at BAM Ritchies and works across multiple sites for digital and technical support and is currently using new digital techniques for clash detection and the assessment of existing structures. Working for BAM Nuttall for 6 years, as part of the team for the Ritchies division, Emily has worked on many different types of geotechnical projects across the UK in multiple sectors. This has included piling works for highways, rail and construction projects.

Claire Howell is an Assistant Geotechnical Engineer at BAM Ritchies. Having completed her undergraduate masters in Geoscience, Claire realised that the part of her degree that had interested her the most was geotechnical engineering and as a result, she undertook a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering looking at developing an innovative grout material. Claire is now working as an Assistant Geotechnical Engineer for BAM Ritchies based at Hinkley Point C where she is part of the team who undertake the slope stabilisation works.  For Claire, no two days are the same, and she splits her time between being on site, where she supervises the drilling and installation of the ground nails used in the stabilisation works, and the office where she liaises with subcontractors on aspects of the design.  This is an important part of the work ensuring that the design is implemented correctly on site.

Hollie Colville is an Assistant Geotechnical Engineer at BAM Ritchies. Hollie initially started a placement with BAM Ritchies 2015, after her first year of study at University. On completion of her degree in Engineering Geology & Geotechnics, she re-joined BAM as an Assistant Geotechnical Engineer and began her first project; a twin piled wall beneath a bridge on the M25. Since then Hollie has worked on several rock bolting and soil nailing jobs across the south of England. Says Hollie: “It’s great to drive or walk past somewhere and know that you helped to build it!

Stella Bray is an Assistant Engineering Geologist at Atkins. Stella, graduated with a degree in earth sciences and joined Raeburn Drilling, gaining practical industry experience.  She then returned to university to complete her MSc in Engineering Geology.  Stella has recently joined Atkins and has worked on high profile jobs such as Hinkley Point.

Amy Ward is a Senior Engineer at SOCOTEC. Amy works both in the office and occasionally on site. Her job role includes the organisation of resources to set up site investigation projects, cost control throughout the works, both factual and interpretive report writing, throughout different construction phases, the training and mentoring of junior staff, technical and quality checks and elements of estimating and business development.

Fay Chappel is a Geologist at SOCOTEC and is responsible for producing detailed site-specific risk assessments and method statements and Phase I desk studies prior to any intrusive works.  Once the ground investigation is completed, she is responsible for writing Phase II Reports. Her main role when working in the field is to supervise intrusive ground investigation works (window sampling, trial pitting, cable percussion and rotary drilling) and log the underlying geology to produce a detailed exploratory hole log.

The BDA would like to thank all members who have participated in the INWED 2019 initiative.