uk resource centre for women in science, engineering and technology

Hi Liza, It's great to read your story -you clearly have huge amounts of drive and energy. However, I would have thought that study at doctoral level is really tough for someone with dyslexia. How do you cope?

Hi Rachel, Fortunately we are lucky in the UK that learning support is provided for everyone in full time education that needs it. I have special needs tuition one to one every week where we work on whatever I need, sometimes its a specific assignment other times its just vocabulary builders. I don't think with all the support out there now that dyslexia is any excuse for people not achieving their full potential. All different types of people are dyslexic those that are really clever and those that are not so clever dyslexia is like a skill gap in one region and it doesn't affect your abilities in other zones of learning (lucky for me :)) If you know anyone affected by dyslexia get them to contact their LEA for more info on the support for them. I didnt find out I was really dyslexic till I got to uni as I had put about 5 times as much work into english to stop people telling me I was stupid or not trying hard enough. Set 1 for everything except english were I was in the bottom set, Iooking back on it it should have been obvious but never got picked up. The thing with studying at doctoral level is that its specialised to there is not the breadth of information like on undergraduate. Even though the work I am doing is harder and at a higher level I find it easier to cope with because its all in a subject I am interested in.Liza

Hi Liza, its fascinating that you are combining an MBA with engineering and starting up your own company. Do you find that the MBA studies mesh well with the practical work of running the business? Does the MBA have a particular focus on science/engineering? What is the best business advice you have got from the MBA? Many congratulations on your success!

Hi Ruth, I found that the MBA was very useful for learning about team work and mainly marketing skills. There was the accounting and financial elements which were interesting to learn although not really something I have used much since. There wasn't any focus on the MBA for science and engineering no. You work in learning teams and can choose to base your module coursework on any company you wanted we always selected a company which would ensure we have lots to write about which was not normally a Science and Engineering company. I think a lot of the management elements are things that engineers just do intuitively anyway - at least in my experience. I didn't really get much in the way of business advice from the MBA as for the EngD you only do the first half (the bigger half) which doesn't include the entrepreneurship module. I do plan on completing my MBA once I have done my doctorate as I think it will be great to have it and I don't want to waste the credits I already have and risk having to do an ExecMBA again later in my career as the first year is really tough (I've been reliably informed that the second year is much better).

Hi Liza
When you go out and give talks etc, do you find that girls engage as equally as boys? Do you think that girls can engage more in engineering if it is linked to something exciting or 'useful'? I would imagine that what you are doing gets the girls' attention because it involves something 'different'. It's something that they might not normally associate with engineering so wouldn't even think about going into an engineering career.

Thank you Lisa for being our final blogger in 2008 - the year we introduced blogging to the UKRC web site -and having such a great career story to tell so far. I'm impressed with Cranfield University being able to think outside of the box and suggest a project that followed your own personal interests - it clearly can make the difference to pursuing an engineering career or putting it behind you and moving on, which is always such a waste of talent. Thanks again and seasons greetings!

Hi Tamsin, Sadly at the moment all the lectures I have given (with the exception of one linked to the WRC where I was invited to speak) have composed of an entirely male audience. I do use examples of engineering in my lectures though for both boys and girls for example how do GHD hair straighteners work? I get a lot of interest from girls though that I now outside of the ETB who are interested in the work I am doing and want to know more. I'm in the New Scientist Christmas special about turning your degree into a business so hopefully that should grab a few female readers attention. I hope that I get some more ETB lecture requests where i will have a chance to speak to some girl as well as boys. Liza

Here is the New Scientist Christmas special article with Tamsin as a case study: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026873.900-the-promise-of-tomorrow.html?full=true The NS introduces it as follows: "EVERYBODY knows that students love to stay up all night, but a recent study by Toshiba shows it's stress rather than parties that is the more likely cause. Ninety per cent of the students surveyed were concerned about their future - worried by their salary potential and the competition for jobs. Going for a higher degree can increase your chances of employment and get you a higher salary, yet many students seem reluctant to take this path. New Scientist speaks to the experts to help answer your questions - and perhaps banish those doubts."

Liza, your work sounds even more interesting now I've read the New Scientist piece. It says your first project was to design a snowboard that doesn't melt on a dry slope and now she you are developing software to predict how boards behave when made from different materials. Wow! (But I didn't know that snowboards can melt... can you explain that in lay terms?)
Seasons greetings to the many readers of the UKRC blog, by the way :-)

The melting is on dryslopes. During my initial research we stumbled upon a snowboard which outlasts pretty much anything else on the market. The bases on poorer quality boards gets hot (due to friction) and melts. Its only a problem we have here in the UK as we're the only place to have such a huge network of dryslopes. If you can build a board to last on dryslope then you've got a pretty hardy bit of kit. :)

Hi Annette, thanks for having me on the blog. I am really lucky I was at Cranfield as when I suggested the Snowboarding doctorate they were really excited about it and we have experts in all the fields required. They have used me since for the marketing campaign to promote the sorts of courses people can study so its gone very well :) Merry Christmas to you too. Liza