Episode 6 - How to help the future of engineering with Dawn Bonfield

Mark McBride-Wright: 0:10

I am your host, Mark McBride-Wright, Founder and Managing Director of EqualEngineers, and I believe that every engineer has a story to tell. The EqualEngineers podcast uncovers the diversity story behind leading engineers and those working with the profession, championing change. Hear from leaders, academics, entrepreneurs, and agents of change, truly transforming the understanding of who engineers are and hot engineers do. Dawn Bonfield is a Royal Society entrepreneur in residence at King's College London, and Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor of inclusive engineering at Aston University. She is founder and director of Towards Vision, a company which works towards a vision of diversity and inclusion in engineering and founder of the Magnificent Women Social enterprise, which celebrates the diversity and history of women in engineering, and uses their inspiring heritage to encourage the next generation of engineers. Dawn is past president and former chief executive of the Women's Engineering Society. By background Dawn is a materials engineer and spent many years working in the aerospace industry on composite materials. She is the UK representative on the World Federation of engineering organisations and deputy chair of the women and engineering committee focusing on the application of engineering and technology to address the sustainable development goals with a particular emphasis on addressing the disadvantages faced by women. She has also recently been a member of the engineering design tea level panel. Dawn, how are you?

Dawn Bonfield: 2:15

Hi, Mark. I'm very well, thank you. Thank you for asking me to join you.

Mark McBride-Wright: 2:19

It's an absolute pleasure. So as you know, I've wanted to start these podcasts to really capture the stories of people who are front face of making change in in our in our sector. And you've been a huge inspiration for me ever since we met or about five or six years ago when I was thinking about going freelance and becoming, making that transition from being an engineer in industry. And I remember hearing you talk at the Women in Engineering Society event, institution, engineering and technology. I think it was back in 2013 or 2014 when it was still National Women Engineering day and hadn't yet quite moved to International Women in Engineering. And it was from that event, I just thought this is exactly the sort of cause that I want to be helping them. And so with our podcasts, we like to hear a split into two halves where we hear a bit about the person we go back we find out about the history, how you got to where you're at what you're doing now and then a bit of time here and about the work that you're doing now. And you know some of the some of the key things that you see coming up for the for the profession. So if we start at the beginning, then let's go back. Where did you grow up? What was what was the young Dawn like?

Dawn Bonfield: 3:44

Oh, gosh, so long time ago, I grew up in Lancashire. I was born in Lancashire, and I grew up partly in Lancashire and then we moved around as a family because my dad was an engineer for Pilkington's, the glass company. And so we moved with his job. So first of all, he worked in Latham and St. Helens, and then we moved to North Wales where he worked in fantastic we lived in Pres. Stratton. And then after that, we moved down to South Wales where he worked in Cumbria and, and we lived in Abergavenny. So I've grown up in those three different places and moved around schools quite a number of times. I guess. You're asking me what was the young Dawn like?

Mark McBride-Wright: 4:29

Yes, yes, I was. I was I was so what was what was the young Dawn like?

Dawn Bonfield: 4:35

Liking work? I liked sport, which was good. You know, something to have that was different and allowed me to make friends I guess. But yeah, definitely. I remember being shy at school and quite introverted, I guess.

Mark McBride-Wright: 4:48

And skill can be a difficult place, I guess. Especially when you're moving around from place to place. Did you ever feel like you did you know that a move was on the horizon. So you never quite fit it always sort of transient.

Dawn Bonfield: 5:06

I don't think I ever knew that a move was on the horizon. But I just know that I don't know why really, I didn't. I think I was just basically shy and basically studious. And so yeah, like studying like school, whereas other people possibly didn't like school as much as I did. And I think, you know, in today we talk about finding your tribe. And I think I found my tribe when I was at in the sixth form. And I came out of my GCSE, you know, oh, levels at the time, and then moved into a sixth form where I was with every day, the people that I, you know, related to, I guess, that's, I think that's where I came out of myself a bit more and found my friendship groups.

Mark McBride-Wright: 5:54

So if we go back to that time, how would you describe those days? And was that then the start of your journey into engineering?

Dawn Bonfield: 6:02

Oh, I'm sure it was. Yes, I did. In my sixth form. I did. I remember, when we moved down from press stat into Abergavenny, I started off in the lowest of the O level groups, they hadn't put me in the, in the top stream since the school stream, there was a massive comprehensive school in Abergavenny. And I just remember being lost in these kind of lower set our level groups and then moving up to the top sets and doing well in my own levels. But then when I came into the sixth form, I was doing I was in a double maths group. So we did maths a level after the first year. And then we did another two maths A levels in the second and physics and chemistry and general studies because they're keen on that in Wales. But I was in a group of six people in in my dorm mass set. So I spent a lot of time with that small group. And we had really, really good careers advice, I think, from the teachers and we all apply to Oxbridge. So we got a lot of help with that. I didn't go to Oxbridge. I went to Bath University. But yeah, it was really, I didn't really have any of the barriers that I see very often in young girls that don't have either that science capital or that engineering capital at home. Or they don't have those supportive school structures that help them into a career in science or engineering. And I did science actually. So I did material science. So yeah, I had quite an easy pathway into that career, I guess.

Mark McBride-Wright: 7:38

And the I mean, Bath is a beautiful city to study. And so how can you take us back to some of your, your to your days there and what it was like being a female student on the material science degree programme?

Dawn Bonfield: 7:52

Yeah, I mean, I have great memories of my degree, we were on a course of 16 students, only 60. And others. I think there were 11 lectures. I still keep in touch with the lectures even now, which I think probably doesn't happen these days when you have such big classes. But yeah, we had a really, really nice, friendly and material science department. And I'd gone there actually, one of the reasons I'd got back was because I've done three of those work, those summer schools where you can go to different universities and, and try out different courses. Oh, yeah, I've done that in in three different places and decided that material science was the thing that I liked. So yeah, I had a great time there. And, you know, we knew students on on the other year's either side of us as well. And that's where I met my husband, who was older than me and material scientist as well. Couple of years older. I love it. Yeah, yeah, it was a great, great family feeling at Bath University. And it's a very small campus as well. Well, now, it's not as a big campus now. But at that time, it was quite a small campus. And yeah, great, great place to be great memories.

Mark McBride-Wright: 9:06

And you mentioned you mentioned summer schools and trying out different courses. I remember doing a Head Start engineering course you're taking me back here just got a flashback memory of when I went to Bradford and did like a four day residential. And I think that was a turning point for me that inspired me to understand that of what my interest in chemistry and maths and physics where it could take me and then the specific sub types of engineering available. Do you think did those events still happen?

Dawn Bonfield: 9:42

Nowhere near as much as I as I think they should do? I did when I was at West I did try to compile them every year and send them out to schools. So a list that there was at one time a directory of them. Yes, so that didn't that started obviously didn't get funding, funding any longer. Have, I tried to do that for a while. And I know what I'd really like to still do that and still know, because I do still careers fairs and going out into schools. And I'd love to be able to say, some of those girls, you know, really, it's really, really worth your while doing this, because you'll figure out what you like, and almost as important what you don't like, yes. And then that will really help you then differentiate in terms of engineering, what the different disciplines are, and what the sectors are that you can go into. Because, you know, it's such a complex profession, in terms of qualifications, that I think if you don't have that capital, it's very difficult to get over that barrier and and see where you can imagine yourself in the future,

Mark McBride-Wright: 10:50

Especially when you've got influencers also influencing your, your process of thoughts how you're processing your thoughts, so then people that you look up to like careers, advisors or your parents, guardians, your teachers to be able to make independent decisions must be quite Yes. Overwhelming, I guess, especially with how complicated the pathway routes are. It's going to get even more complicated now with apprenticeships and T levels. Yes.

Dawn Bonfield: 11:22

You know, exactly. Yeah. And it gives it just gives you that headspace, I think in that time to, to work things through and to talk to people that aren't your parents, you know, or your your school teacher who, like it or not, they probably have stereotypes of who should and shouldn't go into an engineering career. Whereas when you are on those courses, you see those people that have made that choice, and all of a sudden it becomes a reality.

Mark McBride-Wright: 11:50

No, absolutely. So what, what have been some of the key experiences, then who that have shaped who you are,

Dawn Bonfield: 11:58

into. Without that I probably well, I don't know, whether I would have I'm sure I would have gone into some sort of science, career or engineering, one way or another. I think one of the kind of real pivots in my career was not being able to get back into engineering after I have my children. And I think that has really, that really made my force my career to take on a very different turn. And I remember when I had my third child, and I tried to go back into engineering, and work flexibly, it was it was such a negative experience at that time. And yeah, I had, I still think of it now I still dream of that. Now I had. Yeah, it was really disturbing time I did I got put into I've had a really good career, until then I'd had good career prospects, and you know, always done well. And then when I went back part time, I was just put into a backwater, and a real non project and I kept having dreams that I was, I was found out hiding in the lab, not not doing any work, because I just felt like I wasn't contributing anything properly, and, and that I was gonna get found out for being paid and actually not doing anything. It was a horribly disturbing time. And yeah, I left that job, and then actually didn't think that I would ever probably go back into engineering and almost gave up my Chartership at that point. And, you know, it just seemed as if I was paying my Chartership for something that I was never going to use again. Luckily, I didn't do that. And my dad, I think, persuaded me not to and paid for it. And I took quite a long time out of engineering. And then until I came back in afterwards, but you know, I talked about a lot and we were speaking earlier Mark about finding something that is really relevant and authentic to you. And I, I feel like one of the things that I think we don't talk about enough is other skills that women in particular gain during that period of their career break or their maternity break. Because when you do come back into a career after after having a break, you have so many really, really valuable skills that you didn't have before. And I think as businesses, we haven't really cottoned on to that fact that that we can utilise those people on their career breaks much, much more than we do because effectively they are amazing ambassadors for the the company and for the for the sector. Because they are the stepping stones to the communities that were desperately trying to reach you know, they are the ones at the school gate and huh With friends and friends, childrens that can be influenced. And so keeping those women in particular who are on that period or or men, if they're on career potential breaks as well, keeping them involved with the business and, and the training, and then when they're ready to come back in really making the most of those additional skills that they've gained, I think is something that we don't make the most of really.

Mark McBride-Wright: 15:28

Absolutely. I agree with that. 100%. Do you think there's more being done now to help returners? Come back to engineering?

Dawn Bonfield: 15:38

There is more generally, I mean, we went through a phase, I think, when it was quite new and new concept that returnships were kind of quite a new thing that companies did do, you know, a bit of work on trying to get more people in? And I think some of those have continued. In general, possibly, there aren't enough of those. And I think we haven't worked hard enough to retain the skills that we have, you know, spent a lot of money on in the engineering sector. And I think, you know, it's, for me, it really, it's part of the bigger problem that we have around retention, and maybe we'll come on to that later on.

Mark McBride-Wright: 16:22

So you were a huge source of inspiration for me when I met you, when you were president at the Women's Engineering Society, and it was that panel discussion, you're chairing at the at for National Women in Engineering day talking about ally ship. And, you know, progress had happened to date, at that point on gender equality? How do you feel things are going for gender equality in engineering? Now? Are we making progress?

Dawn Bonfield: 16:49

I think, I think we are making progress, I feel I have a positive feeling about where we're at, and where we're going to, not necessarily because we've got a lot of progress to show or evidence of where we've made substantial gains. But really, I think, because the culture has changed, noticeably. And I think the culture in the UK and in the world, you know, in general has changed around inequality. And we're much more likely to see inequalities when they occur these days. And we've had really significant, you know, campaigns and movements that have like me to campaign that have really focused attention on that and giving more people the voice to speak up. So I think, for me, I think that's where the biggest change has come. And I know that we are getting in terms of statistics, we are getting more women taking engineering degree courses, which is great. When you look at the overall percentage of women who take any any qualification, though, the proportion who take engineering has actually dropped. So when you look at it in those terms, and that's a negative, but nevertheless, we are getting more people taking engineering. And the people that are, you know, in engineering now are much more likely and much more aware of the fact that they need to be ambassadors, and they need to use their voice and their platform and do more to persuade others and they do, they are definitely doing that. And I feel in some ways that engineering itself is changing to something that is that is more owned by more people. And I think in some ways, I feel like engineering used to be owned by one group of people. And now we are taking that we are taking that ownership back. And in doing so we're changing what engineering looks like. And so we are slightly tipping the balance of of who is who has that control and that power. And I think, you know, women in engineering, and an any any of the minoritized groups in engineering, who are much more vocal than, you know, your mainstream engineers, because they actually don't need to be vocal about engineering very much. So, I think because of that, we are focusing more attention on what it looks like to be maybe different, but you know, what is non traditional in engineering and that is slightly shifting the picture of what engineering is. So yes, so I am I am seeing change, one of the things that I Yeah, so we are seeing more people coming through taking engineering, you know, albeit possibly not a massive shift in percentages of the population that take engineering. One of the things we need to work on there is this problem of retention. And, you know, that's something that it's been a red flag for a while that we have studiously ignored. And I think we can't get, we can't continuing to ignore the, the, you know, the gaping kind of gaps, if you like in numbers that stay in our industries. So, so let me just tell you what that number is. So it's something like 79% of women on qualified professionally registered Women in Engineering, leave the profession under the age of 54. So that we only have 6% of professionally registered women, professionally registered engineers, as a women anyway. And 79% of those leave under the age of 54. Yeah, and they stay? No, no and they say in engineering, half of them leave within 10 years, I think it is, there's a new academic report that's coming out is I need to look on that subject as well. So yeah, I think we can do more, and we know what we can be doing. So we just need to take that action, I think.

Mark McBride-Wright: 21:14

What do you think are some of the the issues later on in life, that that are maybe driving that reduction in people being professionally qualified, I've seen a focus happened more recently on the menopause, for example, and trying to remove the taboo of talking around that in the workplace, the these women that have been the, in that age category that has been the front of the movement for gender equality change, they then get to this stage in their career, and then up, here comes the menopause and all the challenges that brings and then it's yet another thing that they need to unpack and educate their male peers on and do you think has that played a part in 79% of people leaving by the age of 54?

Dawn Bonfield: 22:02

I know what, that's funny, you should mention that. Because reading I've just spoken about this at an event, actually. And I read the Atkins report quite thoroughly, and it doesn't. There's no, as far as I remember, I couldn't see any mention of menopause. Or, you know, there's mention of all sorts of other reasons why women leave the profession, you know, like stereotyping, lack of role models, lack of support groups, lack of networks, harassment in the workplace, you know, poor culture, menopause has not come up as a reason really. I, I am, I am well, now what maybe I shouldn't say that without control, I think the report and putting menopause in, comes out. But I would, I would imagine that that is, is a reason why people leave their their profession and leave any profession, you know, and engineering is no different to others, possibly in that respect.

Mark McBride-Wright: 23:00

There's been some, there's been some really good. There's a group in Aberdeen called the access network, and it's the gender equality network spinning out off the oil and gas network of organisations. Net Zero organisations as they're calling themselves now. And they recently did a webinar on menopause in the workplace. And it's just, it's, it's almost like this. I've seen it now crop up in a few different places as as a spotlight. So there's obviously some movement now happening for the positive. Absolutely. In providing that focus, and that.

Dawn Bonfield: 23:39

Yeah, I think so too. I think it's because, you know, the women are reaching the women who are likely to be talking about this or reaching now the age where it's happening to them. So whereas, you know, obviously, it's happened to everybody in the past, but I think it's women that it's happened to in the past have not maybe felt so comfortable at speaking out about things that are happening. And I think that's why, why you're hearing more about it now. is obviously not a new thing is it is just know, we haven't changed.

Mark McBride-Wright: 24:14

And as part of your 2018. 2018 was the year of engineering. And you did our roadshow called Meet the Parents. What gave you the idea for this? And how did it go?

Dawn Bonfield: 24:33

Oh, yes, so the year of engineering, I talk a lot and I kind of mode a lot about the fact that we don't have a great career service in engineering. And what I would really like to see is some one stop shop careers, caught all of you like because we do loads of inspiration for young people. But when it comes to the actual time that they come to choose their Then next steps, we don't have something that can really help them that is focused on engineering. So you can't, for example, if you're a parent that doesn't really have any science or engineering capital, who you know, has a daughter, who would probably make a good engineer, because you've seen them grow up all their life, and you know that then possibly that way inclined, you can't just pick up the phone to someone and say, you know, this is what, where we're at that, how do we know what type of engineering to take? How do we know what a levels we need? You know, tell me all about it. And I think that's such a vacuum in our industry that spends so much time and effort on the inspiration. And so many companies do great outreach activities, and inspire people to think that this is a great career for them. But I think, you know, the model that's really good is the NHS careers, I think they bring all of their careers support careers in the NHS into one place. So if you're interested in any of those, you can phone, NHS careers, and they will give you all the information you need. So I think we need this in engineering. So rather than me just say this all the time, I thought, Okay, this is, you know, I need to put my money where my mouth is, and do something about it myself. So, yeah, I decided that the year of engineering was the time to go out on the road, and try and do something that helps those parents really, that didn't have the science and the engineering background. So I did think 14 different shows. And I did shows that were not science and engineering. Well, though, some of them were actually so I had to react, which is, you know, the international aircraft tattoo, which is like my favourite place to go in the world. So I did a few of those. But I also did a lots of like the bath and West show and the hay Festival and the Abergavenny Food Fair, and all of these places where you just get parents and families. Nice. And just talk to them then and so that, you know, did you notice the year of engineering and, and this is a whole load of resources that you can pick up and find out more about careers in engineering that wasn't, you know, directed to one of our disciplines in engineering that tried to, you know, not say, Oh, well, of course, we you know, we're civil engineers. And that's the best place to be. And this is what you need to know, to be a civil engineer, because you do get those at careers, fair people, people come from their own discipline. Yeah. But nobody is there representing the sector as a whole. So that's what I tried to do. And I, I learned so much from the parents who and I learned what it was that they were struggling with, and from the students. And I have, you know, had a whole room full of resources that I'd gathered from all over the place. And in fact, I got them out again last week, because I went to Bolton school to do careers where they're tight, delved in the shed, where they've moved to the shed now. So I've got them all out again.

Mark McBride-Wright: 28:09

I saw the table, I saw the pictures of all the resources, I recognised some of them from, from our careers fairs, and I've had them stored under my bed and an OP unit to have bugs because my husband was just like, Mark, please do not be in my vision. I know they're important, but you know, we need to store them somewhere.

Dawn Bonfield: 28:33

Yeah, I put it reminded me last week of how valuable doing that was. And I'd been to the University of the West of England the week before you would open their new engineering building, which is a whole nother story. And it's a fantastic building, which is aimed just at getting more diversity, and especially people with autism, and neurodiversity. And they'd given me a set of engineering curiosity cards, which are like these top trump cards. And each one of them has a different engineering career on. And honestly, I could not get them out of the hands of the people that were passing the stall, you know, girls in particular, and then parents, their moms actually, were saying, Oh, look at this formula that says, this is a good one. Oh, I didn't know this was a STEM career. And in the end, I had one packet and I just said to this girl at the very NTFS take them with you because you know you you obviously need them more than it so she took the with me, so I don't have some animals get more.

Mark McBride-Wright: 29:31

Oh, yeah, definitely

Dawn Bonfield: 29:35

Really, really valuable. And I think, you know, I could almost see myself just doing that just offering a service and saying, This is an engineering career service and going round. Yeah,

Mark McBride-Wright: 29:51

I think I think a key point really is that we need to triangulate all of this work, you know, you work across so you've got such a unique person. Fact of working across so many cross sections of the sector with different organisations, that really anyone listening to this that could help leverage the work you're doing the work that we've been doing with schools and employers, and really to try and focus sourcing some funding or some investment to crystallise these ideas, we've already in this short call covered on the need for the summer schools that used to run to help bolster the science capital, because both of us were influenced by them to become the engineers that we are now. And then, you know, a centralised place to bring, firstly bring together all these resources digitally, so that they don't have to be in our respective hardcopy and rely on our discretion going round to distribute. Right. And then also the Career Service Portal that is a unified point of reference, because I totally take your point, there are so many inspiration, outreach sessions, but okay, you spark up that that that interest? What's the next thing?

Dawn Bonfield: 31:09

What's the next step? That's right,

Mark McBride-Wright: 31:11

where do they get directed to where you are? We should know we should be busy, right? Go on this place. And this is where you'll find all the information that you need around us, right? Different types of engineering, and then that will lead you there is no connected pathway.

Dawn Bonfield: 31:29

No, that's right. And you know, and I think bringing, there are so many really good resources out there. But when you when any one organisation sets something out, they don't necessarily they're not really fair to signpost, the other resources. So something that is able to signpost as well to those other organisations without detracting from, you know, what they're doing themselves, I think, or even just signposting. I know, we get, we actually get lots of people who move out to engineering to do this type of thing. So you know, we've got stem stem, amazing. That's a great startup that's really, really good at inspiring young girls into STEM, and engineering. And we've got lots of examples of those. And I think some of our best engineers move out of engineering to do that type of thing as well. So

Mark McBride-Wright: 32:25

I guess I, it's actually, it's a need, but it's actually a concern for me, if I'm being honest, I, I see a lot of these people who've want to know run a portfolio career, so they step out of their professional engineering place, and start setting something up that is almost a cookie cutter of some of these things. And so there's a real fragmentation and the number of inclusion specialists, for example, that will send around their experience that are there now offering advisory services to engineering organisations. So if you are an engineering organisation who wants to do some work in this space, the fragmentation of service providers is, it's a potential risk that it's going to do more damage than good, because it's too too dispersed. It's not coordinated. It's not all working to the one common guide and North Star, you know, it's simply an observation that I've had recently. I think you're right. And we've I've been in the game and listener for at least five years with equal engineers. And so we've made some progress. We built inroads to employers with institutions, we built a brand here around this where some of this could live. So it's, it's it's a place where the door is open. And if there are bought on services that we could then bring in so that it's less confusing to to the to the market, essentially, then that's something we could we could look at. And even at an absolute basic level, one action I can take away is simply creating a blog page that signposts to all these resources, yes, and maybe separate it by, you know, just even just a simple blog with hyperlinks that separates right inspiration activities, outreach activities, you know, strands, specific organisations. That could be a starting point.

Dawn Bonfield: 34:28

I do I've got one of those pages actually, on my magnificent women site, or fake postulate that well, no, I mean, that it's just where I put things and people are always getting in touch with me and saying, Oh, I've found your I found your page and I found another thing that you could add to this list. So then I add other things and I'm always posting that but yeah, I really I do this work on the history of women in engineering, which is something that I'm yeah, I really liked doing and I've been doing some outreach around that as well. I had in the summer, this five metre by five metre Snakes and Ladders game made a Science Festival in Cheltenham, which was great, and a real piece of public engagement. And, you know, I, I hadn't really ready for the centenary of women's Engineering Society, but then the British Science Festival got postponed them in that year. So I've used it again, used it this year instead. But if you could, if this was not a podcast, you'd be able to see a small version of it behind me, I'll show you in a minute markets. This little table top Snakes and Ladders, games, and you start at 1919. And you see the progress of women throughout the 100 years, and you go up and down depending on what's happened to there. Yeah, yeah. It's very interesting to do.

Mark McBride-Wright: 35:53

You did you? Did you create that?

Dawn Bonfield: 35:54

Yes I did. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. In full size, it was really good. Because people play it with them set. You know, they, they, they, we have these massive dice that they throw, and then they can walk around it and read all of the things that have happened.

Mark McBride-Wright: 36:09

Oh, we'll need to get that for the EqualEngineers Careers Fairs.

Dawn Bonfield: 36:13

Yeah. It's, it's very engaging.

Mark McBride-Wright: 36:16

Oh, that's a great idea. Great idea. So bringing it up. I mean, we've sort of been covering what you're working on now. But in the last four years, you've been working as a visiting professor at Aston University, and more recently, as a Royal Society entrepreneur in residence at King's College London, can you tell us a little bit more about your areas of focus?

Dawn Bonfield: 36:41

Yeah. So Aston, well, the thing that I was doing there is, when I left, where's actually I moved, I wanted to move on, because I saw really getting more diversity in engineering as being a step on the way to something else that we were trying to achieve, and not the end of the line if you like. So the thing that we wanted to focus more on what it was we were trying to achieve, by getting that diversity, and that was inclusive outcomes of engineering. So making sure that we produced things and we created a world if you like, that was more accessible. More equal, and I do quite a lot of work around gender and and women around the world and how we, we need to ensure that we're creating things that understand creating technologies that understand the roles of women around the world, and how they are disadvantaged by, you know, the societal role that they have, and the cultural roles or the, you know, religious barriers, not barriers, but the ways that they are different because of different cultural. What's the word I'm looking for? No. Norm snores? Yes, yeah. And especially recently around climate change. So, you know, we don't know enough of that we don't have enough crossover in engineering, I don't think with social science and, and understand how our engineering has the ability or not to create more equality in the world. So I wanted to do more around focusing on inclusive engineering outcomes, which is what I did with my visiting professorship at Aston. So looking, for example, at the really, you know, easy things, which are things like bias in our technology. And so they're really easy, I say, easy, because they're quite easy to say, you know, so a soap dispenser that doesn't dispense soap, if your hand is Black is, you know, pretty easy to understand, or facial recognition software that doesn't recognise people with black skin or people, women, as well as it recognises white men. That's pretty straightforward. And we can grasp that. But there are all sorts of other ways that we're embedding this inequality into our engineering. So, you know, we won't know it. But the choice of materials that we make when we're creating ducting, for building, for example, could have very different impacts on different communities. So we're trying to understand that try to understand how our choices in engineering can make a better society is what I was focusing on with this visiting professorship. And it's also what I've been trying to do really with the World Federation of engineering organisations, where I'm the Women in Engineering deputy chair, and that's what we pop actually. So this this last month, we went to cop 26 and spoke about the gender engineering against climate change Nexus. And so that's an area that I've been really interested in in the last few years. And learning all sorts about the the gender side of social science and how this stuff that has been known by many people for a long time, but just not as in engineering really, and how we can translate that. So that's one area that I have been interested in. And then what I'm doing at King's College London is the Royal Society entrepreneur in residence award where I'm trying to help young engineers and undergraduates really all postgraduates think of themselves as changemakers, and having the ability to create technology that addresses so the sustainable development goals. So, you know, for me, they are the big issues that we have, in every aspect of, you know, everyone's work these days, and certainly in engineering. And I think, lots of the issues, lots of the problems that we have could be solved by being more entrepreneurial. And I've seen quite a lot of shift really in the engineering sector, where we are embracing that entrepreneurship, in engineering and technology. And I wanted to focus on that and try to help engineers see themselves because basically, an entrepreneur, and an engineer are very, very close. And yet we, we rarely think of ourselves in the engineering sector as entrepreneurs, because I think we think that that's someone with lots of, you know, confidence and money and finance background and management background. Whereas actually, it's about problem solving, and innovation and matching, you know, understanding the need, and creating something with the technology that we have at our disposal, to, to match the problems that we have in in the world, really. So that's what I'm doing a king. So both of those are so interesting to me.

Mark McBride-Wright: 42:11

Definitely keep yourself busy, there are no small feats, they're all they're all quite, quite big, big and impactful, and I'm sure your your your your you will be having an impact, you will have an impact. Just by virtue of being there, your personal story, the work that you've been doing, you know, the students that are on the courses, at these institutions benefit and from your experience that you've been applying through any lectures that you've been given. So what do you think, are the biggest challenges and also opportunities facing the profession?

Dawn Bonfield: 42:57

Challenges for sure, you know, climate change is the challenge that we have. And I think that now probably as a result of going to cop 26, you know, I feel like, we need to have that in the back of our mind with everything that we do. And, you know, the, the big challenge of biodiversity loss as well, is something that's, you know, that both of those things are huge and massively impactful. So, you know, the opportunities are that, as you know, we don't have as many people and there's certainly as much diversity, as we could do in the engineering sector. So that's still an opportunity to get more and to get more people to think about, you know, I'm not, I'm not really so much interested in when they, whether they become engineers or not, I think sometimes we can get a bit distracted by trying to get people to be an engineer, but actually, it's not really about that it's about it's about the problems that we're trying to solve. We need lots of different types of people to solve those problems and engineering is definitely one pathway to that. But I think you know, if we started to focus on what we wanted people to do, as opposed to what we want people to study and to be there maybe we would be a bit more successful in getting people to do that that aren't really you know, the same old same old people always fall by default into engineering.

Mark McBride-Wright: 44:33

I like that. I like like, I like that wraparound as in focus more on the problems, what what solutions we need, and then let that and engineering is but one pathway to that if our pursuit helps diversify other STEM pathways or even other artistic ways like behaviour tests, you know, other are more needed.

Dawn Bonfield: 44:55

Because I think lots of solutions come at those boundaries between different disciplines and I think, you know, if you can get people out of their silos and into this space where you're all trying to solve a problem, and, you know, we, we can there's nothing to stop us in engineering getting a much better grasp on the social issues as well. We don't have to always, you know, think our, we're the, the technical specialists, we have to understand that systems thinking and, and have that empathy as well with other other sectors and know how the decisions that we make as engineers are impacting people, you know, because there's people that are at the heart of this whole thing really, isn't it and, and their behaviour? So? Yeah, I think that's the opportunity we've, we've got in engineering and and also to, to reclaim it to be something that we can all identify with. So that, you know, when we think that we think of it as our our sector.

Mark McBride-Wright: 45:56

I love that. I love that.

Dawn Bonfield: 45:59

I wrote actually the chapters of the UNESCO engineering report for sustainable development last year. So I read the EDI chapter in the Women in Engineering chapter. And they had some recommendations that I, I'm pretty keen to follow up on, because we've got so many reports with recommendations in that never go anywhere. Yeah. So I personally want to try and follow up on those. And I'd like to work more with UNESCO and find a way of doing that. And, you know, working with WF eo is actually really positive because they're a huge global organisation with 100 national members. Right. So there's great opportunity there for creating change around the world and doing more of this capacity building in other countries as well. So yeah, yeah, there's still lots to do.

Mark McBride-Wright: 46:49

Well, let's keep at it. They'll do a podcast in a couple years time and we'll we'll see the difference. Thanks, Dawn. I've really enjoyed chat today.

Dawn Bonfield: 46:59

Well you too, Mark. As always, we'll catch up next time in face to face.

Mark McBride-Wright: 47:03

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