Gillian Skinner passionately supported the cause that WES represents and made a valuable contribution over several decades.  She was a member of Council for a few years, acting as Membership Officer, and promoted engineering careers to students.  Gill enjoyed conference, attending ICWES events in France and India as well as being a regular at WES conferences, even well into her retirement.

When Gillian died in 2003, her family approached WES about making a donation in her memory and from that, the Gillian Skinner Awards were instigated.  In line with Gillian’s nature the awards are made to celebrate the ‘behind the scenes’ contributions to WES which often go unnoticed, but are nevertheless very valuable.

 

Winners

  • 2023 winner was Laura Luckhurst. Laura has been a beacon of constancy and excellence in leading the Women’s Engineering Society London Cluster.
  • 2022 winner was Susan Robson. Susan has offered her expertise and guidance to the board and has been pivotal in creating and implementing an overall strategy for WES.
  • 2021 winner was Alexandra Knight. Alex Knight has made an outstanding contribution to WES over the last few years, initially as an active member of the London cluster and later, as a member of the WES Board.
  • 2020 winner was Jennifer Glover.  Jennifer was the Chair of the UGB in its first year, then went on to manage the student group initiative in the role WES Student Liaision Officer.  Jennifer has also led a group of Members in the reformatting of the She’s an Engineer feature and has worked extensively on student pages of the WES website, improving their design and content.
  • 2019 winners were Caroline Carslaw and Holly Goodwin. Both Caroline and Holly were founding members of the WES Young Members Board.  Caroline is commended for the work she put into gathering stories for the WES Journal and e.Newsletter on the activities of the YMB.  Holly is commended for her work on the competitions: the essay competition and draw an engineer competition, where her hard work promoting the competitions resulted in a substantial increase in entries, enabling us to reach more children.  Caroline also played a major role in the administration of the competitions run by WES and came up with the idea and artwork for the WES Centenary Draw an Engineer Competition.
  • 2018 winner was Alison Carey for her work as Honorary Treasurer for WES.
  • 2017 winners were Adriana Vargas and Jo Douglas.  Adriana is recognised for her work driving the WES clusters both locally in London and nationally.  Jo runs the growing student group initiative and set up and chairs the WES Young Members Board.
  • 2016 winners were Jon Cable and Fiona Neads.  Jon Cable was honoured for the work he has done helping WES digitalising The Woman Engineer and in recognition of his assistance over the years helping WES retrieve information from its extensive archives.  Fiona Neads is thanked for the work she did setting up the WES Fellowship membership grade and chairing the selection committee.
  • 2015 winner of the Gillian Skinner award is Sophie Parsons in recognition of the work she has done running the feature ‘She’s an engineer‘ on the WES website.
  • 2014 winners of the Gillian Skinner award are Anne Madsen and Angela Shackcloth
  • 2013 Helen Charles Morgan in recognition of the careers advice and support she gives to women on behalf of WES as well as her help in setting up the jobs section of the WES website, a valuable resource and income steam for WES
  • 2012 Dawn Bonfield won the award for her voluntary work in running the WES office whilst it was without paid staff
  • 2011 Joanne Lamour from Arup for giving up some of her Saturdays to host the council meeting in the Arup building in London
  • 2010 Fareen Mahmood, in recognition of her significant contribution in helping to manage the WES website redesign
  • 2009 Carol Marsh and Julie Winnard
  • 2008 Kevin Quigley, Roseni Dearden and Betty McCarthy
  • 2006 Karen Quigley
  • 2004 Claire Rees and Ruth Carder were the first winners, and had their awards presented to them by Gillian’s son, Stephen

Do you know someone who fits the bill?  Please let us know who they are and the reason why you wish to nominate them. Email your nomination and reason to the WES office: hello@wes.org.uk or call 01438 765506.