Category Archives: EDI

EDI Blog Series – Part 2: Sara Walker

EDI, Energy Systems, , , , , ,

About the Author:

Professor Sara Walker is the Director of The Centre for Energy, in the School of Engineering. Her research focusses on renewable energy and energy efficiency in buildings, energy policy, energy resilience, and whole energy systems.

Sara is Director of the EPSRC National Centre for Energy Systems Integration, Deputy Director of the EPSRC Supergen Energy Networks Hub, and Deputy Research Director of the Active Building Centre.

My journey to professorship – struggles and triumphs

In November of 2021 I was promoted to Professor of Energy at Newcastle University. This has felt like such a career landmark for me.

I was brought up by my parents in Cramlington, a town to the north of Newcastle. When I was young my father was made redundant and the family moved into council housing. I never considered myself as poor, but I do remember we grew potatoes in the garden to save on food shopping and me and my younger sister would wear hand-me-down clothes. My older sister left school at 16 and got a job working in hospitality, and as my parents’ financial situation improved they were able to purchase their council house, but we were by no means affluent! At 15 I got a Saturday job at Whitley Bay ice rink in the cafeteria, and I started to earn my own money which was very empowering.

When I went to university at Leicester I noticed that my financial situation wasn’t the same as others around me. I had a grant from the council to cover most of my living costs and my parents also contributed to top my grant up. I got a part time job working at the bar in the students union, and also worked part time in a local pub. During summer vacations I always worked, normally bar work.

I remember waiting to use the public telephone one weekend to chat to my parents whilst at university, and watching the person on the phone in front of me crying crocodile tears to her dad. She needed money to buy a ball gown since it wasn’t fair for her to be expected to wear her existing ball gown that she’d already worn.

That’s when it really struck me that some of my fellow students were really well off! I didn’t join expensive societies like skiing and horse riding, I didn’t go to lots of balls and social events. For my graduation ball I hired my dress.

When I finished my undergraduate course in physics I was offered a PhD by my personal tutor at the university. I didn’t really know what a PhD was, I had been first in my family to go to university, and I turned it down. Instead, I did a teacher training course and got a job as teacher. After teaching for a short while I decided to go back to university to do a masters course in environmental science, because I had got really interested in energy issues through voluntary work. This led onto a research job, and an opportunity to complete a PhD part time whilst working as a researcher. I think this is the only way I could have completed a PhD since I didn’t have the financial resources to support myself on a student bursary. The part time PhD took five years whilst I worked as researcher and during that time I had my son Toby.

My early experience of academia was still affected by my background somewhat. I had to think carefully about attending academic conferences, because I didn’t know how long it would take for my expenses to be paid back. One time an expensive overseas trip wasn’t paid in time before I had to pay the credit card bill, and I could only pay the minimum and incurred interest, something I couldn’t claim back from my employer. Conference dinners were a minefield, I didn’t have lots of spare cash to spend on cocktail dresses. Even work suits were often bought from the catalogue and paid for monthly when I first started out. Later in my career, financially and socially I found myself excluded from social events and the associated networking opportunities of corporate boxes at football, or golf at exclusive members courses.

Academic statistics do not portray the full picture…

HESA statistics are available, to tell us something of the makeup of our UK professoriate. In 2019/20 there were 22,810 professors, of which 6,345 are “female”, 16,415 “male” and 50 “other” gender. Of the 21,055 professors with known ethnicity, 2,285 are BME. 735 professors are known to have a disability. Looking just at engineering, this discipline areas has the lowest proportion of female academics (see figure below). There are no statistics for socio-economic group, and no statistics for intersectionality (i.e. we don’t know how many BME are female, or how many BME have a disability, for example). There are also statistics for grant applications and success from EPSRC, by gender. Data for other protected characteristics are lacking.

Source: Departmental demographics of academic staff

Source: EPSRC Understanding our Portfolio

I am acutely aware of the lack of role models in academia from lower socio-economic backgrounds. But there are also a lack of role models who are LGBTQ+, minority ethnic, disabled, non-white, from different faiths, or any combination of these. In seeking out these role models, we expect people to be open about their protected characteristics, regardless of the discrimination this may attract.

Moving forward…

Raising up colleagues, giving equality of opportunity, and being more aware of the potential barriers to engagement, are approaches we are taking at Newcastle University’s Centre for Energy. For example, we are working hard to encourage involvement from all job families in the Centre for Energy – research as an activity spans so many jobs including project managers, technicians, finance, research students, research staff and academic staff, for example. We want the Centre itself to address issues of fairness and equity in energy research, and so we have a theme on Justice, Governance and Ethics. We are tackling global issues of energy transition, issues which need a range of perspectives across gender, race, (dis)ability, sexual orientation and religion in order to come up with solutions that work for the majority, and not the select few.

I have a strong northern accent, and am proud of my roots and to be back in the north east working at a Russell Group university. But I am still that kid from the council estate. And I am proud of that too.

EDI Blog Series – Part 1: Challenging gender norms in engineering

EDI, integrated energy systems, , , , , , , ,

In the first of a series about equality, diversity and inclusivity from our energy and engineering colleagues, Dr. Nabila Rufa’I shares her experience of growing up in northern Nigeria and how that has led to a career in energy research.

About the Author:

I joined Newcastle University earlier this year, after completing my PhD at the University of Leeds. I am a research associate for the National Centre for Energy Systems Integration and have also joined the Centre for Energy.

My research interests are:

  • Techno-Economic and Environmental Impact Analysis of Low Carbon Technologies
  • Power Quality Enhancement
  • Advanced Control of Renewable Energy Systems

Passion for Power

I was born and raised in Kano State in the north of Nigeria. 


Owing to a lack of supply and up-to-date infrastructure, we would often go three or four days without power. There was even a period when power was divided and scheduled across several towns and villages. 

This meant our allocation of power could be in the middle of the night. We had to choose between sleeping or completing power-dependent tasks when we could. 

Infrastructure in Nigeria is in poor condition, and becoming worse. It’s already more than 50 years old, and population growth is a huge problem. The old infrastructure just can’t keep up with demand.

One of the first things my daughter said to me when we moved to the UK at four years old was: “Mummy, how come the lights never go off?” 

This was the main reason I became fascinated with electricity and power. How can I make a difference and fix challenges like those in northern Nigeria?

Being a Nigerian woman in Engineering

It’s common for a woman in Nigeria to be a full-time housewife. 

Some may also have a small business or part-time job alongside their domestic work. For example, making pastries or tailoring. But it’s uncommon for women to follow an academic career, let alone one in such a male-dominated field.

Personally, I didn’t think of choosing an engineering academic career as out of the ordinary. 

I was very fortunate that education was always an important part of my life. Both of my parents had a passion for education, and completed PhD’s. My grandad was the first to attend University from our village. So their collective achievements had a huge influence on my life and aspirations.

 When I started my undergraduate electrical engineering studies in Nigeria, I was the only female in a class of 70. I would occasionally receive comments such as “why are you doing this?” and “how are you in this profession?” 

I knew it bothered me. But I never knew how to respond. So I stayed quiet. 

But now I like to speak to those who question my choices. I explain that everyone has their own interests, hobbies, and career goals, There’s nothing wrong with that. Thank goodness we are making progress as a society.

Gender should not be an issue in any profession. If you have the passion, drive, and interest, why not do it? Anybody who wants to do it, can. Working as an academic in the UK, I am fortunate to be surrounded by people who are more aware, who understand gender and other EDI issues. Most of my negative encounters have been in Nigeria.

Integrating into the UK

I came to the UK to study Electrical Engineering and Renewable Energy Systems at the University of Leeds in 2012. At first, I found the UK overwhelming and intimidating. I think most people feel this way when moving to university, or away from home for the first time. 

For me, it was more difficult adjusting to educational life rather than making friends or understanding British culture. For example, I had to learn software such as MatLab at a very fast pace, whilst other students already had experience with the software. Fortunately there were lots of international students, and we helped each other. The university also offered lots of support to help with learning, engaging and adjusting to UK life in general. 

I was also fortunate enough to have my husband and brother. They moved to Leeds from Nigeria too, and after three months found our feet.

My advice

I encourage people who are being unfairly challenged to be resilient. In life, you will always find people who oppose you, or have different perspectives. But that doesn’t mean you should not enjoy what you are doing.

It’s important for your personal growth to be aware of other’s challenges, opinions, and cultures. That is education. You are part of a wider community that you need to understand. And this is something I am teaching my children.

Find out more

Energising our lives – a WES 100 Violets Challenge project – the continuing story

built environment, carbon emissions, EDI, Energy Systems, integrated energy systems, Net Zero, STEM outreach, Transport

Engineering is key to find answers to the challenges we face today! From the climate emergency to the medical and humanitarian response to the global pandemic, collaborating engineers are playing a significant role in developing solutions.

Newcastle University researchers, Dr. Jannetta Steyn and Laura Brown have worked together on a WES 100 Violets Public Engagement Challenge project, to illustrate the solutions and ideas engineers are applying to the global need for clean and affordable energy and integrating technology to improve the quality of our every life.

About WES

The Women’s Engineering Society (WES) is a charity and a professional network of women engineers, scientists and technologists offering inspiration, support and professional development. Working in partnership, it supports and inspires women to achieve as engineers, scientists and as leaders; they encourage the education of engineering; and support companies with gender diversity and inclusion.

About WES 100 Violets Challenge

The Women’s Engineering Society’s (WES) 100 Violets Challenge competition was part of their centenary celebrations in 2020. The aim was to design and build an engaging museum exhibit that celebrates and showcases engineering/research and shares it with the public. The challenge is supported by the Ingenious Grant program from the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Building the exhibit

Please see our first blog post to find out more background about the project idea. https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/cesi/2021/01/29/wes-100violets-part1/

More Technical Details about the project can be found in a series of blogs developed by Jannetta at her personal blog site: – brainwaves.jannetta.com

The aim of the exhibit was to showcase electrical, software, computing, mechanical, building, transport and energy engineering. So no pressure then.

The Energy System Integration Vision

About the Project Team: Dr Jannetta Steyn

Jannetta is a Research Software Engineer at the Digital Institute, Newcastle University. As an experienced researcher and software engineer she has a background in data analysis, provenance and middleware programming. Jannetta does a large amount of outreach work, primarily in STEM, running a range of coding clubs and electronics clubs.

Contact:- Jannetta.Steyn@newcastle.ac.uk

http://brainwaves.jannetta.com/

About the Project Team: Laura Brown

Laura is the Centre Manager, EPSRC National Centre for Energy Systems Integration and Energy Research Programme Manager, Newcastle University. Her research tackles the challenges of integration of state-of-the-art thinking and technology into legacy and future energy systems. Laura sits on the Tees and Tyne Regional Cluster Committee of the Women’s Engineering Society and is the group leader of the SDG7 subgroup of the WES Climate Emergency Group.

Contact:- laura.brown11@newcastle.ac.uk

Our first outing

By way of practice for the WES 100Violets Exhibition planned for April 2020, we were lucky enough to be offered a chance to “trial” the exhibit at the opening event of the Gateshead Library Makerspace. We were delighted that the training we have been given by WES had come in very useful, particularly the risk assessment guidance. This meant we had planned carefully the storage requirements, labeling and cable routes for the equipment for our exhibit.

Jannetta writing some code for the IoT with a young helper adjusting our Lego Engineers

The event went well but underlined what we suspected:- KIDS LOVE LEGO. It proved to be a popular exhibit. And, while it might have been the draw of the remote control car (with its own garage), the Bluetooth controlled train or the eye-catching rotating wind turbine, all of the young people we spoke with left knowing just a little bit more than they did about renewable energy and role of women in engineering and computing.

So how do these technologies work in real life?

Part of the purpose of the exhibit was to provide educational information on the energy system. So we had been working on a number of learning resources that we thought might help engage the visitors to the exhibition. We had planned to have ‘make your own’ wind mill; colouring sheets; spot the energy competitions and possibly a 3D printing demo session.

It was all looking good but then as the date for the main event drew near, the impact of the pandemic was starting to reach home. The organisers took the difficult but inevitable decision to postpone the exhibition.

How does a wind turbine produce electricity? https://archive.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/solutions/technologies/wind.html
  1. As the wind blows over the blades of a wind turbine, it causes the blades to lift and rotate.
  2. The rotating blades turn a shaft that is connected to a generator.
  3. The generator creates electricity as it turns.

Some great STEM resources out there to explain energy

As part of our research we found some very useful STEM resources that we would highly recommend for anyone looking to understand more about their own energy system.

  1. BBC Bitesize – Humans and the Environment https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zp22pv4
  2. NASA’s Climate Kids https://climatekids.nasa.gov/menu/energy/
  3. CALTECHs Energy STEM resources https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/learn/tag/search/Energy

So what now

While cancelling the event was most definitely the right thing to do, all the groups from the WES competition were disappointed. Lockdown meant our team couldn’t even get onto campus to check our equipment and work further on the exhibit. Everything paused.

When the North East of England partially removed the lockdown in the summer, Jannetta collected all the components of the exhibit to have at home. So after the most recent national lockdown and encouraged by Dr Jo Douglas-Harris, the WES Tees and Tyne Cluster Chair, we looked for alternative ways to ‘tell the story’ of the project and share the vision. The new aim: let’s try to exhibit virtually. A new challenge for us both.

So for the last month of so, in our rare moments of spare time and in our evenings, we have put together some materials and collated the reflections and learning from the project in two blogs (this one and that one (https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/cesi/2021/01/29/wes-100violets-part1/)). And we are going to trial exhibiting virtually via a livestream on CESI’s YouTube Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcKtJZLFUsCXYGuJ62evBkA

The EPSRC National Centre for Energy System Integration (CESI) YouTube Channel

Event Details

Image

And we’ve got an accompanying YouTube video too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_slWTm_zEhI

We look forward to hearing what you think.

Energising our lives – a WES 100 Violets Challenge project – the 1st part of the story

built environment, EDI, Energy Systems, Net Zero, STEM outreach, Transport, , ,

Engineering is key to find answers to the challenges we face today! From the climate emergency to the medical and humanitarian response to the global pandemic, collaborating engineers are playing a significant role in developing solutions.

Newcastle University researchers, Dr. Jannetta Steyn and Laura Brown have worked together on a WES 100 Violets Public Engagement Challenge project, to illustrate the solutions and ideas engineers are applying to the global need for clean and affordable energy and integrating technology to improve the quality of our every life.

About WES

The Women’s Engineering Society (WES) is a charity and a professional network of women engineers, scientists and technologists offering inspiration, support and professional development. Working in partnership, it supports and inspires women to achieve as engineers, scientists and as leaders; they encourage the education of engineering; and support companies with gender diversity and inclusion.

About WES 100 Violets Challenge

The Women’s Engineering Society’s (WES) 100 Violets Challenge competition was part of their centenary celebrations in 2020. The aim was to design and build an engaging museum exhibit that celebrates and showcases engineering/research and shares it with the public. The challenge is supported by the Ingenious Grant program from the Royal Academy of Engineering.

The exhibit idea

The aim of the exhibit was to showcase electrical, software, computing, mechanical, building and energy engineering. The Public would be able to interact with the exhibit to provide an insight into how things work and what is involved in developing the technologies that make our way of life possible without impacting the planet.

Essentially the team would be building a model of a typical house but integrated with some of the established and emerging engineering and computer science innovations that are providing a route to sustainable living.

The building model was inspired by a family history project carried out by Dr. Steyn of a house that was built by her ancestors in South Africa in 1850 in the Cape Province.

  • The prototype was designed using Inkscape
  • A lasercutter was used to cut it from 3mm Birch plywood
  • The thatch roof used coconut fibre and the ridge was cut strips from a hanging flower basket lining

The final model was informed by the research being carried out at the EPSRC National Centre for Energy System Integration (CESI) which both project team members participate in. CESI is investigating the value in taking an energy systems integration approach to the future energy system and evaluating the security, economic and environmental costs of the future energy and transport scenarios being considered for the UK.

More Technical Details about the project can be found in a series of blogs developed by Jannetta at her personal blog site: – brainwaves.jannetta.com

About the Project Team: Dr Jannetta Steyn

Jannetta is a Research Software Engineer at the Digital Institute, Newcastle University. As an experienced researcher and software engineer she has a background in data analysis, provenance and middleware programming. Jannetta does a large amount of outreach work, primarily in STEM, running a range of coding clubs and electronics clubs.

Contact:- Jannetta.Steyn@newcastle.ac.uk

http://brainwaves.jannetta.com/

About the Project Team: Laura Brown

Laura is the Centre Manager, EPSRC National Centre for Energy Systems Integration and Energy Research Programme Manager, Newcastle University. Her research tackles the challenges of integration of state-of-the-art thinking and technology into legacy and future energy systems. Laura sits on the Tees and Tyne Regional Cluster Committee of the Women’s Engineering Society and is the group leader of the SDG7 subgroup of the WES Climate Emergency Group.

Contact:- laura.brown11@newcastle.ac.uk

Elements within the project

Training and Early Engagement

To help give us expertise the tricky art of public engagement and science communication, the WES 100 Violets Challenge Group organised two expert training sessions from a wonderful team of Science Communicator experts from Science Made Simple. The trainers gave us top tips on body language, communication tools and invalable guidance on the Health and Safety considerations of planning a public exhibit. We also got the chance to meet the other winners of the 100Violets Challenge and hear about their inventive ideas.

And to practice our new science communications skills, we organised an event with the students and staff of the School of Engineering at Newcastle University. As part of our exhibit were some elements of lego energy systems, we thought the students (and staff) would have fun helping us construct the model. And for extra measure, we borrowed some resources from our colleagues at Open Lab to allow some free lego building. The event was great fun and I’m pleased our research confirmed our hypothesis – engineers love playing with lego !!! What do you think of the results?

Community build with the Engineering students from Newcastle University

Gender Equality in Engineering

We aren’t sure who coined the phrase, “if you can’t see it, you can’t be it” as a rallying call to have positive role models from all sections of society in all walks of life but we felt even in this relatively light-hearted project there was some evidence of gender bias in the system. When we procured the rather fabulous lego wind turbine we were somewhat crestfallen when the two technicians were both males! That error was quickly fixed by some immediate head swaps. We then used this as a theme in the model that all the roles in the exhibit tableau would be engineers – a non-gendered noun.

The end of the beginning

By this time the model was starting to take shape. (More technical details can be found in a series of blogs developed by Jannetta blog site: – brainwaves.jannetta.com ).

  1. We had a date in the calendar for the big WES 100 Violets Exhibition
  2. We had procured all the parts of the model and constructed all the lego components
  3. 3D printing and Laser Cutting of the House was going well
  4. The IoT Smart Home was beginning to take shape
  5. The EV had been built and was (remotely) operational
  6. We had developed some engaging learning materials to accompany our exhibit
  7. Science Made Simple team had helped us perfect our Exhibition Pitch for our intended audience
  8. We had our first engagement event with the students (guinea pigs) completed and it had went well
  9. Our fabulous colleague Faye Harland had provided an amazing schematic of our planned model (See below)
  10. We had another local exhibition planned …
  11. It was February 2020 … it was all in hand … what could possibly go wrong …

… we suspect you can guess but we will provide some more of the story next week in our next blog. To be continued …

The visualisation of our idea. Artist: Faye Harland, Newcastle University

Approaching Equality, Diversity and Inclusion within research teams

Academic Profile, EDI

As EPSRC publishes their findings on gender perspectives within their research funding portfolio, our Centre Director, Dr Sara Walker and Centre Manager, Laura Brown discuss the challenges women working to help rebalance the mismatch face.

About the authors: Dr Sara Walker

Dr Sara Walker is Director of the EPSRC National Centre for Energy Systems Integration, Director of the Newcastle University Centre for Energy and Reader of Energy in the University’s School of Engineering. Her research is on energy efficiency and renewable energy at building scale.

About the authors: Laura Brown

Laura is the Centre Manager, EPSRC National Centre for Energy Systems Integration and Energy Research Programme Manager, Newcastle University. Her research tackles the challenges of integration of state-of-the-art thinking and technology into legacy energy systems.

As an academic team, we have a responsibility to consider Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the way we conduct our teaching, research and knowledge exchange. Doing the right thing is not always easy. We are in no way experts. But surely it is better to try, and accept that we will sometimes get it wrong?

Our research is funded by the EPSRC, for the National Centre for Energy Systems Integration and the Supergen Energy Networks Hub. So, we were interested to read the recently published EPSRC report Understanding our portfolio:  A gender perspective.

Within their report they state, “Underrepresentation of women in the engineering and physical sciences remains one of EPSRC’s largest equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) challenges and is a well-known issue in the engineering and physical sciences community.” We applaud the transparency that EPSRC has shown in issuing the report as we know, as scientists and engineers, one of the best ways of tackling problems is by considering the underlying data.

In our opinion, the findings of the report can be considered both worrying and illuminating. For example, higher value awards show significantly lower award rates to female Principal Investigators. Since 2007, applications of value over £10million have been received from 5 females, compared to 80 males. In 2018-19 (the latest year we have data for), just 15% of applications received were from female Principal Investigators.

Factors affecting application rates by female academics are likely to be numerous and complex, affecting individuals in different ways.

Some of these could be:

  • Women win fewer scientific prizes and so the public see fewer “success stories” of women, discouraging women to take up science subjects. (Callier, Conversation,  Jan 2019)
  • Women are evaluated by their students as less effective teachers than male counterparts, which may impact career progression (Basow, JEP, Sep 1987) 
  • Women are less likely to be selected at application stage for things like access to equipment. This was noted in a study of Hubble telescope time , for example. ( Johnson  & Kirk, HBR, Mar 2020)
  • Women get paid less: “The EPSRC’s analysis of the salaries which applicants request on grants is a very effective illustration of the gender pay gap. Using age as a proxy for career stage, we see men get paid more than women at similar career stages, and this effect increases with seniority level.” From @TIGERinSTEMM
  • The large grant applications are required to come from the Research PVC, of which we have very few women (Donald, Blog, Oct 2020)
  • Women undertake more unpaid work than male counterparts as parents, carers and in household duties, and this impacts the time available for, and consequent success in, delivery of those measures of “success” which are valued for promotion in the workplace. This impact of unpaid work has been particularly marked during COVID lockdown for women in academia ( Gewin, Nature, Jul 2020) and (Pinho-Gomes, BMJ GH Vol 5 Iss 7)

We underline could in the above section, because there is simply a lack of data. Reading “Invisible Women” by Caroline Criado Perez (Vintage, ISBN: 9781784706289) makes you realise that “lack of data in academia” can be replaced with “lack of data in society”.

Data is not available from EPSRC for other protected characteristics, and so our understanding of the academic experience is often limited to our own lived experience. In order to address EDI in our institutions, we often ask those in the protected characteristic groups to represent a heterogeneous mix of people and experience. As two white women we bring our white privilege to the table (a great resource on this is here: https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf). Even within white privilege there are intersections with our Northern and Scottish roots, and class, for example.

McIntosh (1989) lists several white privileges, and given recent discussions in the UK of decolonisation of the curriculum and the during the current Black History Month, this one gives pause:

“When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization”, I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.”

McIntosh (1989) White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

We are more than white women. We are white, heterosexual, married women who have children. So, as EDI champions, how can we reflect the experience of the full diversity of women? Women of colour, women without children, women who are disabled, women who are homosexual, or people who do not associate with binary expressions of gender? We may be very close to women with different lived experiences and have an appreciation of their experience through family and friends for example. And what role for men, how can they better understand the lived experiences of the full diversity of men? How can our research teams become better environments for all, regardless of difference?

We conclude it behoves each of us to read, observe and educate ourselves about the experiences of others. Be a good example. To take responsibility for our own awareness, to be reflective, and commit to being a better global citizen. To be kind. To be human.