International Women in Engineering Day, celebrated on 23 June, is an initiative aimed at raising awareness around the incredible achievement of women engineers. While we recognize that there is still some way to go to ensure equitable representation, job satisfaction, and opportunities for women in engineering, we would like to take this opportunity to spotlight some of the amazing women whose work make the world better and safer. Below, Dr Theodosia Stratoudaki (University of Strathclyde) reflects on her professional journey and her experience of being a woman in engineering.

“My main research is focused on sensing and imaging using light. I use light to generate and detect ultrasound. This is important in order to evaluate the condition of industrial and structural parts and make sure that they are fit to do the purpose they are expected to, perform and that they don’t fail. My research is particularly relevant to applications in extreme environmental conditions such as space, high temperature or nuclear environments. Light is one of the very few types of sensors that can operate in such harsh environments.

I lead the team of Remote Ultrasonics and Laser Enabled Sensing at the Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering of the University of Strathclyde. We are developing hardware, software and signal processing methods for laser ultrasonics, most of them targeted towards NDE.

There is plenty of scope for increasing diversity in NDE. It is very promising to see the NDE community realising why NDE needs diversity and then engineer ways to make things possible for all talent to thrive. It is my pleasure to be part of this community both within my role as a researcher and as a teacher to future NDE scientists and engineers.”

We would like to thank Theodosia for sharing her story, and for being an excellent role model for aspiring women engineers.