ICE Connects: growing the women in fellowship network, Glasgow

Dr Michѐle Dix CBE

Dr Michѐle Dix CBE FICE has 47 years’ experience in transport in the public and private sector. At Transport for London she developed and delivered the Central London Congestion Charging Scheme with her job share partner. As the managing director for planning she was responsible for London wide strategies and policies and developing major schemes. Most recently she was the managing director of Crossrail 2.

Today Michѐle is a non-executive director of the Major Projects Association, a non-exec on Crossrail International, a visiting professor at UCL, programme board member for the restoration and renewal of the Houses of Parliament and an ICE Policy Fellow. Michѐle is chair of the ICE Connects: Women in Fellowship focus group and was appointed a UK Infrastructure Commissioner in 2023.

Dervilla Mitchell CBE FICE

Dervilla Mitchell is deputy chair of Arup Group. Dervilla trained as a civil engineer and has spent most of her working life in the UK, where she has been involved in a wide range of projects laterally leading the design of major building projects. A large part of her career has been involved with aviation, designing terminal buildings including T5 Heathrow, T2 Dublin and more recently Abu Dhabi Midfield Terminal. Other notable projects include Portcullis House, Westminster, and the Athletes Village for London 2012.

Prior to her current role she was executive chair of the UK, India, Middle East and Africa Region of Arup responsible for over 6,000 people.

Dervilla is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Irish Academy of Engineering, Engineers Ireland, and the Royal Academy of Engineering. She has been active in championing diversity in the construction sector and supported initiatives to encourage young people to consider engineering as a career.

She was a member of the Prime Ministers Council for Science and Technology for a decade and chairs the National Engineering Policy Centre’s decarbonising UK working group.

She was awarded a CBE for services to engineering in 2014 and received an honorary doctorate from University College Dublin in 2016 and Imperial College, London in 2021.

Dr Barnali Ghosh CEng FICE

Barnali Ghosh has been nominated by the British Geotechnical Association for the John Mitchell Award, to recognise her major contributions to the practical aspects of geotechnical offshore and earthquake engineering.

She is currently a technical director at Mott MacDonald, where she leads a team of specialist geo seismic engineers - who carry out both regional and site specific geotechnical and seismic hazard assessments for a range of structures in the energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing sectors. During her long career, Dr Ghosh has acted as a seismic designer and reviewer for high-profile projects around the world. Of particular note is her sustainable solutions and performance-based design approaches for developing countries which have wide-ranging social outcomes for communities.

Dr Ghosh is a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor at Cambridge University for Geo Seismic Engineering. She has also worked part time as an adviser for the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) UK, after being awarded a Fellowship by the Royal Commission of the Exhibition of 1851.

She has been extensively published in international journals, is an invited speaker in many seismic conferences, and has recently contributed to ICE MOGE (Manual of Geotechnical Engineering). She was part of the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) following the Nepal earthquake in 2015 and is part of several committees related to seismic engineering.

Dr Ghosh was the winner of the prestigious 2017 Shamsher Prakash Award for Excellence in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and a winner in the Top 50 Women in Engineering Award in UK (2020). Her pioneering work in propagating sustainable solutions and practical application of embodied carbon principles in rehabilitation of Gumbasa Irrigation Canal was recognised in the Ground Engineering Sustainability award in 2022.

She is also part of the network for inclusion of diversity and women in Mott MacDonald, and a role model and mentor for women engineers within the company. Recently, as panel member for the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) diversity committee (Southeast), she is working with ICE Connect to increase the number of women Fellows within the association.

Mark Wild

Mark Wild has more than 35 years of experience leading complex and critical infrastructure. An Engineer with Hons Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Masters in Business Administration, Mark started his career in the electricity sector but the majority of his experience has been in transportation.

He has had a long career in operating and building major transportation infrastructure. Mark is the former Managing Director of Westinghouse Signals and was the CEO of Public Transport Victoria. Mark is the former Managing Director of London Underground and the former CEO of Crossrail, Europe’s largest infrastructure programme. Mark took up the role of CEO for SGN, one of the UK’s largest gas distribution networks in August last year.