My career spans diverse areas of industry, education and gender equity agenda. I started my engineering education in Czechoslovakia, as it was then, by attending my local Technical College from the age of 14 – 18, then Technical University before moving to UK following the Soviet military invasion of Czechoslovakia. I have faced many obstacles in my engineering career in the UK during the late 60s and early 70s and my career in engineering did not take off until later in Germany. There I was able to work flexibly part time whilst raising two small children and to slowly restart my engineering career. On our family return to UK I gained additional UK qualifications and trained as a teacher when no opportunities of work in engineering arose. In the end the qualification in Education became very useful when I became a lecturer later. I have worked in industry as Mechanical Design Engineer in UK and Germany, in Further and Higher Education as a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering. My “third” career was in Gender Equality as an advisor and consultant – working with companies on implementing organisational changes to workplace culture, due to changes in legislation being introduced then. I collaborated with universities during their application process for Athena SWAN Awards and became an Athena SWAN Award assessor. Currently I work as a freelance interpreter and translator in Czech and Slovak and devote the rest of my time to voluntary work for WES and INWES.

I serve on the Council of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES). In over 10 years of service to the Society I have held several executive posts, such as Honorary Secretary, Vice President, President, Company Secretary and Immediate Past President. Over the years I have been involved in solving governance issues, such as reviews of WES Memorandum and Articles, organisation of events and conferences and the day to day running of the Society. I have international links with academia in other countries, namely the Czech Republic and Slovakia as well as with members of INWES / ICWES