NATIONAL WOMEN IN ENGINEERING DAY - TOP 10 INFLUENTIAL FEMALE ENGINEERS

Today is National Women in Engineering Day - a day dedicated to raising the profile and celebrating the achievements of women in engineering. In celebration of the day, here is a list of our Top Ten Influential Female Engineers...

Martha Coston (1826 - 1904) - An inventor and businesswoman, best known for her invention of the Coston Flare, a device for signalling at sea. 

Lillian Gilbreth (1878 - 1972) - An American Psychologist and Industrial Engineer, one of the first working female engineers holding a Ph.D.

Padmasree Warrior - Chief Technology and Strategy Officer (CTO) of Cisco Systems and former CTO of Motorola, Inc. As of 2014, she is listed as the 71st most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. 

Beatrice A. Hicks (1919 - 1979) - an American engineer, the first woman engineer to be hired by Western Electric, and both co-founder and first president of the Society of Women Engineers.

Edith Clarke (1883 - 1959) - The first female electrical engineer and the first female professor of electrical engineering at The University of Texas. 

Kate Gleason (1865 - 1933) - An American engineer and businesswoman known both for being an accomplished woman in a predominantly male field of engineering and for her philanthropy. 

Mary Walton - Nineteenth-Century inventor who was awarded two patents for pollution-reducing devices.

Helen Greiner - Co-founder of iRobot and currently CEO of CyPhyWorks, a start-up company specialising in small multi-rotor drones for the consumer, commercial and military markets. 

Elsie Eaves (1898 - 1983) - First female associate member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and a founding member of the American Association of Cost Engineers (Now AACE International). 

Ellen Kullman - a US business executive. She is Chair and Chief Executive Officer of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company ("DuPont") in Wilmington and a former director of General Motors. Forbes ranked her 31st of the 100 Most Powerful Women in 2014. She holds a degree in mechanical engineering. 

Developing Female Engineers

The Institution of Engineering and Technology says the impression that ‘engineering is just for men’ needs to change in British businesses are to be successful. Research carried out by the institution has shown that the number of female engineers has remained at just 6% for past few years. The government announced in June, that it would be providing funding of £30 million to increase the supply of engineers, encourage more women into the sector and to address engineering skills shortages in smaller companies. The fund will enable engineering companies to establish training programmes to develop future engineers and boost the number of women in the profession. £10 million of the fund will be directed to a call to ‘Developing Women Engineers’.