Shrouk El-Attar, an Electronic Design Engineer at global engineering technologies company, Renishaw, has been shortlisted for the 2019 Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award. The awards ceremony will be hosted at the IET London, Savoy Place, on Thursday December 5th.
El-Attar’s responsibilities at Renishaw have included designing analogue circuits for co-ordinate measuring machine (CMM) probe heads that can provide 5-axis measurement to sub-micron accuracy. She studied for her bachelors and masters degrees in engineering at Cardiff University, graduating in 2018. Since 2011, she has worked as a science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) ambassador to promote STEM careers to school children.
El-Attar was born in Egypt and has been living in the UK as a refugee since 2007. In her spare time, El-Attar is a human rights campaigner for refugee and LGBT+ rights, and in March 2018 she was awarded Young Woman of the Year, by the United Nations refugee agency. She was also named in the BBC’s 100 most influential women in 2018.
Commenting on becoming a finalist, El-Attar said, “I came to the UK as a refugee child. This meant that for many years, I was not allowed to study engineering. I entered Young Woman Engineer of the Year because I want to honour every little girl who found herself a refugee overnight then was told that she can’t be a mathematician, scientist, or an engineer because she escaped war, conflict, or persecution. I want to show her that she absolutely can do it!”
“Engineering is a fantastic career – it’s diverse and exciting with the opportunity to do something life- or world-changing,” said Jo Foster, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager at the IET. “I’d like to congratulate Charlotte, Amber, Shrouk, Ying, Claire and Samantha for making the final six and in helping to demonstrate the tremendous female engineering talent in our industry today.”
The IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards celebrate role models who can help address the STEM skill shortage, by promoting engineering careers to girls and women. A new award has been added for 2019, the Gender Diversity Ambassador Award, for somebody committed to addressing the gender imbalance in their profession.
