Siemens Technical Apprentice recognised at IET awards

Emma Goulding, a technical apprentice at Siemens, has been awarded the Mary George Memorial Prize at the Institute of Engineering and Technology awards.

Emma had been named as a finalist in the Young Woman Engineer (YWE) category. Launched in 1978, the YWE awards honour the very best early-career female engineers working in the UK today, who show great promise and potential in the profession.

Emma was named as a finalist alongside 4 other women from companies such as Jaguar Land Rover, AECOM and M&H Plastics. Fellow Siemens employee Ashleigh Sumner, an Electrical and Electronic Engineering Apprentice in the Digital Factory division, was also a finalist. Commenting on her achievement, Emma said “Winning the memorial prize was a complete surprise; I was delighted to just find out that I was a finalist, that alone was very unexpected!". Emma joined the business in September 2012 when it was Rolls-Royce Energy. She moved to Siemens following its acquisition of Rolls-Royce Energy in December 2014.

After undertaking a variety of three-month rotational placements, Emma is now permanently working within the Controls Service Engineering team. Here she is responsible for providing technical support for the Siemens AGT fleet of industrial gas turbines. Upon completion of her apprenticeship, Emma will permanently join this team as a Controls engineer. Within Controls, Emma’s responsibilities can include providing reactive support for urgent operational controls issues, supporting and carrying out modifications to controls software used that govern industrial gas turbines, and creating in-service documentation such as technical reports that can be used by other colleagues and field service engineers alike.

As part of the preparation for the awards evening, Emma has had a short film made about her life as an engineer. On 14 October, a film crew followed Emma around for the day capturing footage of a typical day including her work in the Controls Lab and undertaking tasks on one of our aero-derivative gas turbines. There was also the opportunity to film her in a meeting with Power Generation Services CEO Randy Zwirn, who happened to be visiting Warwick that day. In addition, they looked at what Emma did outside of work, going along to her athletics club to give a fully rounded view of life as a female engineer. Emma is keen to encourage more women to enter the engineering profession. She says, "There aren’t enough females in engineering and I think a lot of people have misconceptions about what engineering is like. In reality, there are a variety of roles you can undertake under the umbrella of engineering. So if by being part of these awards I can show people what it’s really like and encourage more people to consider it as a career option then that is great news!”.