ICE London Ambassador of the Year: Engineer commended for work with students
A civil engineer from Surbiton has received recognition for her work in the first STEM Ambassador Awards from the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) London Region.
Mai Nguyen, age 31, received the top award at a special ceremony held at the ICE Head Office at One Great George Street, Westminster.
Director of ICE London, Miranda Housden, said: “Encouraging young people to consider a career in engineering is important if we are to have the right people designing and building our infrastructure for the 21st century and beyond.
“ICE London is involved with a lot of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) work in schools and universities across the capital which can only be achieved by our members contributing their time
and expertise.
“To recognise that commitment we launched the ICE London STEM Ambassador of the Year Awards this year and we were delighted with the high standard of nominations received.
“Mai is a civil engineer and construction planner from London Bridge Associates, based in Surbiton, and received the award for her work in organising a series of lectures and interactive workshops for schools and universities in London and elsewhere.
“Through her work she has raised the awareness of civil engineering with an introduction to tunnelling to more than 200 young students this year. Her work has received exceptionally positive feedbacks from the schools and universities involved.
“She is currently Chair of the Schools and Universities Group of the British Tunnelling Society’s Young Members Committee and encourages others to get involved in schools activities.
“Not content with all of that work alongside her full workload and family life (she has a 3 year old boy and expecting another baby girl this Christmas), Mai is currently leading her team in preparing a Teachers Pack on tunnelling which will provide lesson plans about tunnelling for use in secondary schools.
“That work was judged to be of such a high standard that we were pleased to present her with the top ICE London Ambassador of the Year 2012 Award as recognition of the inspiration she has provided to young people considering engineering careers.”
Mai said: “I graduated with a Bachelor degree in Civil Engineering from University of New South Wales, Sydney in 2002 and then completed my MSc degree in Construction Management from University of Dundee in the UK in 2004. Since then, I have thoroughly enjoyed my career in civil engineering and especially enjoy tunnelling work which is challenging and exciting.
“The satisfaction you get from working with prestigious projects such as Crossrail, Thames Tideway and HS2 is immense.
“I am pleased to be able to work with ICE London to share my enthusiasm for engineering with young people as they make their career choices and I hope that as my own career progresses I will find myself working alongside some of the students who worked with me on these STEM projects and were inspired to also choose engineering as their career.”
ICE London has more than 8,000 members living and working in the city. More information can be found at www.ice.org.uk/London. You can follow ICE London on Twitter: @ICE_London