To celebrate International Women in Engineering Day 2020, we asked our President, Ashley McCarthy-Griffiths, to tell us about her brilliant career so far, and why her work with the Power of Engineering is so important.
What made you want to become an engineer?
My dad. I enjoyed Maths, Science and English but was always an A- or B+ student. I didn't really know what an engineer was or did, but didn't think I was smart enough to be an engineer. My approach to figuring out what university course I wanted to do in Year 11 was to go through the careers guide book and cross off the careers I didn't think I would be interested in. My Dad suggested that, before I ruled out engineering, I should come to his office and talk to different types of engineers to understand more about what they do. Talking to different engineers at my dad's work made me realise there are a lot of different types of engineers. I also learned about the role engineers play in society, and in making a difference to the community.
Can you give us a canned history of your career highlights so far?
I did a mechanical engineering internship at a design consultancy and learned that I do not enjoy technical mechanical engineering design work! I also worked as a technology strategy and optimisation consultant at Deloitte. Some of my highlights there were project managing the implementation of a data platform and developing an open data strategy for an energy retailer. My current role is as a business analyst at BHP, where I work with a variety of teams across our coal sites and Minerals Australia operations to identify and understand their current challenges and explore how we can leverage technology to deliver value by improving safety and productivity. I’ve done lots of exciting work exploring high-tech mining equipment such as drones, facial recognition, robotics and automation.