Mai Nguyen, who works for London Bridge Associates in Surbiton and lives in Croydon, was named ICE London STEM Ambassador of the Year while Richard Harrap, who works for Ramboll Energy in Westminster, and Dimple Rana were both Highly Commended for their work.

Director of ICE London, Miranda Housden, said: “As has been seen from the inspirational Olympic Park development which was delivered safely, on time and within budget, civil engineering is a very worthwhile and rewarding profession. We hope that the staging of the games in London will be a lasting legacy for young people who will now appreciate how they too can contribute to their society through a career in engineering.

“ICE London does a lot of work in schools across London thanks to the large number of volunteers who work with teachers to share their skills and expertise through engineering competitions and workshops, careers talks and working with young people to let them know the attributes and qualifications they need at GCSE and A Level if they wish to pursue a civil engineering career.

“This summer we launched an Ambassador of the Year Award to recognise the work that is being done by these volunteers to recognise the work they had done in the academic year which ended in July 2012.

“We brought together an excellent panel of judges:

• Dan Harvey, Executive Director, Ramboll and Chair of ICE London
• Tina Patel, Teacher, Claremont High School in Brent
• Andrew Stanley, Head of Education and Learning, Institution of Civil Engineers

“The awards were given for activities undertaken in London schools and colleges during the academic year from September 2011 to July 2012 with the award winner receiving a certificate of achievement and trophy at a special ceremony at ICE Head Office in Westminster. 

“We were particularly looking for nominations which met the following selection criteria:

• Demonstrable commitment to promoting the civil engineering profession through the work undertaken with schools
• High quality of the events/activities organised by the ambassador and positive impact of these events for the students, teachers and parents
• Potential for the activity to be used by other engineering ambassadors

“We were delighted that so many schools and colleges nominated engineers who have been working with them and that so many engineering companies nominated their staff involved in this type of work.

“We are expecting that part of the Olympic Legacy will be an increase in interest in civil engineering careers so any schools or college wishing to have an engineer working with them in their school can contact us at icelondon@ice.org.uk  and we will aim to match them with a suitable volunteer.”

The winner’s details are:

Overall winner was Mai Nguyen, a civil engineer and construction planner from London Bridge Associates for her work in organising a series of activities in schools and universities in London and elsewhere, providing an introduction to tunnelling to over 200 young people. Her work has received exceptionally positive feedback from the schools involved. She is also Chair of the Schools and University Group of the British Tunnelling Society’s Young Members Committee and she encourages others to get involved in schools activities. Mai is currently preparing a Teachers’ Pack on tunnelling which will provide lesson plans about tunnelling for use in secondary schools.

Highly Commended was Richard Harrap, a Design Engineer from Ramboll Energy for his involvement in a number of activities for schools and universities around London including the Engineering Your Future event held at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in March this year. Here he designed and led a series of sessions for sixth form students describing the offshore civil engineering industry and ran a hands-on exercise to design and build a model of a deep water foundation for a wind turbine.

Highly Commended was Dimple Rana, a Graduate Engineer from Arup’s Advance Technology and Research Group for her work with Fortismere School, Haringey on the Engineering Education Scheme. Her commitment to the project, passion for her subject and ability to communicate with the student team has been a huge asset for promoting the profession to future engineers. Over six months Dimple helped to implement a programme that provided hands-on work experience as part of a team, experience of problem solving and designing a temporary wind shelter for the Olympic sailing venue.

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