Profile

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Diana Mathew

Curriculum Vitae

  • Education:

    University of Sheffield (MPhil); University of Surrey (MSc); University of Mumbai (BEng)

  • Qualifications:

    MPhil (Electronics Engineering); MSc (RF/Microwave Engineering); BEng (Electronics & Telecommunication)

  • Work History:

    Project and Procurement Asst. Manager (Archangel Lightworks),Telecoms Engineer/Project Manager (Avanti Communications, London); Research student (Uni. of Sheffield); Project intern(NPL,UK; Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai)

  • Current Job:

    Project & Procurement Assistant Manager

  • Employer:

    Archangel Lightworks

  • About Me

    I'm an Electronics Engineer turned Project Manager working in SatComs Industry, an aunt to a 5-year old and a dancer living in Oxford.

  • Read more

    I’ll try to keep it brief 🙂

    I was born in South India in a beautiful coastal town- – went to University in Mumbai. My parents were both Science graduates and my brother is an Engineer as well so Engineering was kind of a natural choice.

    My love affair with Electronics was more by design. This is how it all began – because of some personal reasons I missed school when we had the very first sessions of the topic so I felt left behind when i went back. I took that as a challenge- spent several days and evenings on the topic – and glad (and proud) to say, i finished top of the school in Physics in the board exams that year!

    Electronics is very vast – from Quantum mechanics to health monitors to satellites, it takes various shapes and forms and I find that quite fascinating.

    I enjoy cycling and walking in the countryside and I’m very passionate about everything ‘green and eco-friendly’.

     

  • My Work

    I work in the Satellite Communications industry and my work is to make sure projects run smoothly and finish on time and within the budget it is allocated.

  • Read more

    I currently work for a new company (start-up) aiming to develop a laser-based solution to make data download from satellites faster. Because it is not commercial yet, I can’t give out a lot of details but this youtube video about NASA’s work sums up the technology and the Physics behind it succintly.

    Being part of the Project Management team requires good technical understanding and people skills. It involves knowing how the different technical sub-elements – electronics, optics, mechanical, control systems – come together to make the whole system. I also need to be aware and make decisions about who needs what and when, what needs to be done by whom and when and so on.

  • My Typical Day: No two days are the same but to give an overview, a typical day would start with our morning 10min catch-up meeting, going through spreadsheets to plan team's work/purchases, or reading through technical standards/ reports to create processes for our team, presenting the progress to senior members of the company.

  • Read more

    My typical day at work would be preparing various documents. Depending on the project, these could be technical descriptions of a system or a more general work progress update.

    All projects come with regular meetings – internal , with project partners, and with the funding agency representatives. In these meetings we are required to check/update the progress of the work in relation to what was proposed at the project ‘proposal’ stage, document risks that have been identified and also the follow-on actions required to mitigate the risks and keep the project on-track.

  • What I'd do with the money

    I'd use it to support the two charities - AppsForGood and GirlGuiding

  • Read more

    I would like to see more of the young generation pursue STEM careers, especially girls.

  • My Interview

    • How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

      Curious, Adventurous, Hard-working

      What's the best thing you've done in your career?

      Wrote a code to calculate signal degradation in events of rain that can help determine the location/separation for ground earth stations for satellite missions.

      What or who inspired you to follow your career?

      Story of Astronaut (late) Kalpana Chawla and the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster in 2003.

      What was your favourite subject at school?

      TBH, that depended on who was teaching...... but in the final year of school Physics and Geography were equal favourites.

      What did you want to be after you left school?

      An Electronics Engineer

      Were you ever in trouble at school?

      Not really.

      If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?

      Teaching

      Who is your favourite singer or band?

      ABBA, Ed Sheeran

      What's your favourite food?

      That's difficult!!

      What is the most fun thing you've done?

      Paragliding in CapeTown! (that' s where the profile pic is from))

      If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!

      Good Health until I die, a place in the countryside beside a lake with lots of trees, money to go travelling around the world.

      Tell us a joke.

      What do you do with a sick boat? Take it to the 'DOC'.

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