ICE Strategy Session: ICE President’s Future Leaders accelerate nature

Prof. Anusha Shah

Anusha Shah is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and its president for the 2023-24 session. She’s the third woman and first person of colour to be elected as president in over 200 years of ICE history.

She’s a senior director for resilient cities and UK climate change adaptation lead at Arcadis, a global sustainability, design, engineering and management consulting firm.

She’s also a non-executive director at the Met Office, a trustee at the Green Alliance and a visiting professor at Edinburgh University. She was awarded honorary professorship by the University of Wolverhampton for knowledge transfer and an honorary doctorate of engineering by the University of East London for her services to address climate change.

Anusha specialises in water and environmental engineering and has over 22 years of experience in designing, managing and leading projects and programmes in the UK and internationally.

Anusha sits on various industry climate change groups. She represents Arcadis at the London Climate Change Partnership and the 50L Home Initiative of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. She’s a past chair of the Thames Estuary Partnership Board.

Anusha is the recipient of several awards, including the 2020 Top 50 UK Women Engineers Sustainability Award and the CECA Inspiring Change Award. She was recognised by Climate Reframe as one of the UK’s leading Black, Asian and minority ethnic voices on climate change.

Aimee Jones

Aimee is a Civil Engineer Degree Apprentice working at Mott MacDonald in the Water Consultancy Division. During her apprenticeship, Aimee has worked on a variety of different projects, such as delivering river restoration design, designing solutions to improve the ecological health of the river, whilst reducing flood risk and having a nature-first mindset. She has also been working on High Speed 2 Phase 1 in the rivers discipline, delivering a range of technical design from watercourse diversions/realignments to replacement floodplain storage areas to scour protection design. Recently she has taken on a Lessons Learnt role on the project, helping to lead the lessons learnt process and driving continuous improvement on the project.

Aimee is passionate about driving change in the industry, and has taken on a number of additional roles on top of project work. She is the Early Career Professional apprentice lead for the Water and Environment division within Mott MacDonald, and is a part of the Apprenticeship Ambassador Network – whereby she strives to raise awareness around apprenticeships and make improvements to the scheme. She is also the Mott MacDonald Brighton office Brilliant Neighbour champion, whereby she has organised beach cleans, city tidy-up days and other sustainability events. As well as delivering a voluntary SuDS project in a local school. 

Aimee is one of the ICE President’s Future Leaders for the 2023/24 cohort, and wants to use the platform to have a positive impact, helping to bring nature, climate and people to the heart on the engineering and built environment profession.

Alexis Solomou

Having graduated from the University of Surrey in 2022 with an MEng in civil engineering, Alexis Solomou has been working on a variety of projects at Arcadis. These have covered aspects ranging from asset management frameworks to bridge designs. 

Passionate about entrepreneurship, digital innovation, sustainability and being part of the net-zero transformation, Alexis is also one of the ICE President’s Future Leaders for 2023-24. Throughout this period, he hopes to help build on the institution’s sustainability initiatives and expand its influence in the wider industry.

Elena Lindsey

Elena is a lead civil engineer and project manager at the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. She graduated with a MEng in civil and environmental engineering from Liverpool John Moores University in 2019. She began working for Binnies as a civil engineer. In May 2022, she moved within the RSK Group to RSK Falkland Islands as a civil engineer. She was seconded into the Falkland Islands Government (FIG) in December 2022, and held the role of contracts engineer for the Public Works Department (PWD).

Elena is excited to promote collaboration and connection within ICE, with representation from the South Atlantic. Elena is particularly looking forward to collaborating with professionals from a range of industries, drawing upon their knowledge, and sharing her own. She hopes to contribute her experiences of logistically complex projects and global team management to inform future strategies and generate new ideas.

Evita Widjaja

Evita is an engineer at AtkinsRéalis. She graduated from the University of Cambridge with a MEng in Civil Engineering.

Evita is excited to engage and collaborate with a wide range of professionals to solve the industry’s most pressing challenges. She would like to explore how we can put the thought leadership rhetoric into practical day-to-day action, with a focus on water, energy, and carbon synergies. She is also honoured to join Professor Shah’s resilience journey as one of her Future Leaders.

Marcus Rodin

Marcus is an assistant structural engineer working at AtkinsRéalis. He graduated with an MEng in civil engineering from Imperial College London.

Marcus is most looking forward to being exposed to a wide range of people across the industry, having conversations that shape the profession and address some of society’s pressing issues. Being a Future Leader is a unique opportunity to get a holistic view of the Institution and the industry through various events and mentoring sessions throughout the year, which will really help to accelerate his development on a personal and professional level.

Nusayba Abaas

Nusayba is a civil engineering apprentice at Balfour Beatty. She is also studying at the University of West London on a civil engineering degree apprenticeship.

Nusayba is most excited about working with Professor Anusha Shah on projects that will test her skillsets in new and enlightening ways, particularly in her focus on improving sustainability in the infrastructure we build. She hopes to take these learnings and use them to frame her career to make her desired impact on the industry, with a specific focus on supporting the industry to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Ramsha Saleem

Ramsha Saleem is an assistant civil engineer in the Sustainable Water Management team at WSP, London. She graduated from the University of Surrey with an MEng in civil engineering with a year in industry. Notable achievements include being awarded a Surrey ICE Scholarship and Level 4 and 5 Global Graduate Awards in Spanish.

Ramsha is passionate about sustainability, diversity, inclusion and STEM, particularly in making higher education more hands on and student centred, which she presented a research paper on at the 2023 IASS Conference in Melbourne, Australia. Ramsha was also a finalist STEM Champion in the 2023 Inspiring Women in Construction awards.

Through her role as a 2023 Presidents Future Leader, Ramsha hopes to make a positive change in the industry furthering resilience and inclusion.

Sayid Salim

Sayid is a geotechnical engineer at Arup with previous experience in ground engineering teams at Atkins and Dr Sauer & Partners. He graduated from University College London (UCL) obtaining a BEng and MSc in civil engineering.

Sayid thinks that this year presents an exciting opportunity with Professor Anusha Shah’s focus on how civil engineers can play a key part in addressing the growing urgencies of climate effects. Sayid is looking forward to engaging with industry leaders on the ICE projects at the forefront of driving change in this area as well as gaining a better understanding of industry thinking and influence. This is an exciting opportunity to benefit from vast learning experiences to further his personal and professional growth as a civil engineer.