International Institute of Women in Engineering

One of my 4th year engineering students at Murdoch University, Sarah Corbin, has received sponsorship enabling her to attend the IIWE (International Institute of Women in Engineering) summer seminar in Paris, this July. Well done, Sarah!

For the pre-program preparation, they asked participants to research engineering practices in their own countries by talking to any engineers they might know. I am pleased that she asked me if I would do her a small favour and to give her my thoughts on the following questions regarding engineering in Australia.

The origins of its engineering traditions? We can cast a wide net to try and understand the origins of Aussie traditions in engineering. Personal achievement, immigration, mateship, European and Asian culture, national pride all have contributed to the maturity and respect with which Australian engineering capability is held.

The development of the Snowy River hydro power scheme is very well known, also locally the Perth-to-Kalgoorlie water pipeline; the leadership in mining practice and technology, including mining software (70% of which comes from Australia, mostly from Perth), and high technology where Australian work on radar with the British during WW2, and other scientific and engineering contributions in optical and radio astronomy.

These foundations contribute to the traditions of the engineers and firms that operate today.

The evolution of engineering as a discipline? In some ways Australia is a great leader, including construction, mining and high technology including solar cells, wide-area and wireless networking. In other ways, we focus on civil, power and mechanical engineering in our leading professional organisation, Engineers Australia, where advances in electronic, software and communications engineering are paid short shrift by comparison.

The emergence of professional and technical colleges is important but could do a lot more to support the basis of our technical disciplines rather than relying on, for example, professional associations and publications from the UK, Europe and USA.

How engineering is taught (theoretical or practical)? The teaching of engineering varies broadly and widely between institutions and disciplines. I think this is a good thing in principle because it prevents a monoculture from developing whereby a few dominant approaches would prevail over a diversity of ideas.

Some engineering courses emphasise the theoretical aspects in their teaching whereby others focus on practical applications, including laboratory and hands-on, but to my knowledge all courses strike a balance between these aspects. Similarly, I believe that it is desirable for some courses to emphasise the scientific and mathematical foundations, eg. physics, chemistry and biology, where others instead try to build a broader, general engineering basis somewhat like Oxford.

What type of engineering is done in their countries? Every kind of engineering possible is done in Australia, from civil, mining, oil&gas, power through to electronics, communications and nuclear. I think the traditions of Australian engineering lend themselves to encouraging the development of innovative solutions and exploration of the creative dimensions of engineering - every field or discipline of engineering is fair game.

What does society expect of its engineers? Both too much and too little. The occasional legal action against engineers may be reasonable, eg. based on negligence, or unreasonably based on ignorance of technical issues and the pedantic misapplication of standards and the law. The situation is improving as members of the legal profession have better knowledge of technology or themselves come from the engineering profession.

On the other hand, engineers do not always meet up with society's expectations for a worthwhile contribution to political debate on technical subjects, eg. infrastructure and nuclear power. However, I do not believe that engineers should lobby outside our areas of expertise.

The social status of an engineer? In Australia, engineers are generally highly regarded and our work is viewed in a positive light. For some reason, parents and the community do not perceive engineering as a career with the same status as medicine, law, business or architecture, for example, when I believe the earning potential, prospects and satisfaction are equal to or sometimes higher than the alternatives.

Professional office practices in their countries? Compared to the same professions I mention above, it us arguable that professional development, coaching and mentoring in the workplace are not paid sufficient attention in engineering as they should be.

Some organisations have professional development plans or graduate programs, and the better ones include a mentoring component, but we are lax when it comes to the equivalent of an internship, clerkship or equivalent for admission to professional practice.

In general, the engineering office environment is informal, collegial, sociable and fun.

Engineering ethics? It is desirable but not often mandatory for engineers to be members of their relevant professional association, often Engineers Australia, or to have chartered membership of this or an equivalent organisation in order to carry out duties with certain responsibilities.

One of the advantages of membership is explicit acceptance of the need to adhere to a professional code of ethics. Notwithstanding this, I believe that engineers of all stripes, members or otherwise, practice in Australia with the highest levels of ethical conduct in all aspects of their work.

It is virtually unheard of in Australia to hear about an ethical breach in professional conduct in regard to technical, financial or social aspects of engineering practice.

Sustainable energy as practiced in this region? Australia has a long history of research and deployment of sustainable energy solutions including photo-voltaic technology and solar heating, often for household water heating. Recently this has started to pick up pace with the Solar Cities program but we still arguably lag USA and Spain in this area.

Interesting developments of geothermal power have enormous potential to complement existing hydro power and an expanding network of wind farms. Smart grids and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) have the potential to revolutionise the demand-side towards more sustainable practices.