Profile

I live in Bath with housemates. I play lots of sport, including hockey, tennis, squash, touch rugby, cricket and running. I like travelling especially to places that involve lots of walking. I am cricket captain at work and member of a local hockey club, touch rugby team and tennis and squash club. When not playing sport or travelling, I like seeing my friends and family, going out for dinner or to their houses.

I decide what the form and materials of a building should be so that it can resist all the forces that act on it, like gravity and wind. I work with the architect to make sure the building looks like they want it to. We communicate with sketches, drawings and 3D models. I work with the mechanical engineer to make sure all the pipes and air conditioning can fit in rooms and don’t clash with the structure. I work with the builder to make sure the building can be built safely, on time and to budget. I check the structure is safe using a miture of hand calculations and calculations and analysis models on the computer.

Over the last few years, I have worked in different countries, in different offices and on different sites, so really there is no typical day. This variety and opportunity to travel and experience new things is one of the things I love most about structural engineering. That and seeing your creations come to life.
When in an office, my day involves a mixture of calculations, modelling, sketching and meetings. All are part of the process of design for construction, which involves collaboration with clients, architects and contractors amongst others. This could be at the very start of a project when we are bouncing ideas around on the overall building form and materials with the architect, to the site phase, where we are solving critical interface details with the site manager.
I support junior colleagues with technical advice and chartership, as well as taking part in outreach at schools and organising student and graduate conference to engage the next generation of engineers.
Whilst on site, I ensure that structures are built as per my design and I constantly learn lessons that I can take forwards to future projects.