Meet award-winning engineer Nicola Grahamslaw
I’m the engineer who looks after the SS Great Britain. I’m conserving the ship for the future – we care for Brunel’s original iron by keeping the air that surrounds the most vulnerable parts as dry as the Arizona Desert to slow down corrosion. I’m examining how well the system that does this is working, and designing improvements to allow it to be effective for longer and use less energy.
I’ve lived in Bristol for 10 years now but I ended up here by accident. As a student I applied for a summer internship with an engineering company in Burton-on-Trent.
It turned out their head office was in Bristol; they sent me here for a summer and I never looked back. I recently returned from a career break spent in New Zealand and it felt totally natural that Bristol was where I was returning to – it feels like home now.
People working in STEM are researching and designing products to be used by everyone, so it’s important that all parts of society are represented in those fields. Caroline Criado Perez recently published Invisible Women, a book highlighting issues with a world designed predominantly by men – the best-publicised example is a woman being more likely to be injured in a car accident because the safety features are designed based on the average male body. There’s also plenty of research showing that organisations with a more diverse workforce are more profitable, which makes sense – a male-dominated business is missing out on 50% of the talent pool.
The industry is working on promoting role models for young women but it’s important to address the reasons why women aren’t drawn to STEM subjects in the first place. This has nothing to do with biology or differences in the brain – it’s because society imposes gender stereotypes on children right from birth. Why shouldn’t boys play with dolls or girls wear clothes with spaceships on? I’d encourage anyone who wants to make a difference in this area to support the ‘Let Toys Be Toys’ campaign. My own volunteering includes speaking in local schools, mentoring young engineers, and running the Bristol and Bath branch of the Women’s Engineering Society which provides a support network for women STEM professionals in the local area.
One of the things I love most about engineering is seeing technology developed for one industry being used in another. It makes the job really interesting because you never know where you’re going to find inspiration. The same technology that makes Formula One cars faster is now being adapted to stop cold air leaking out of supermarket fridges, and there are lots of examples of this on the ship, too. The software used to control the dehumidifiers in the dry dock uses the same mathematical technique that keeps aircraft flying in a straight line.
I’m reading Hello World: How to be Human in the age of the Machine by Hannah Fry. More and more decisions are being made by artificial intelligence; it’s a fascinating area of technology which has the potential to impact everyone’s lives.
The last great meal out I had in the city was at Tare in Wapping Wharf. I also love to buy bread from Assembly Bakery and the cake at Mokoko!
The Banff Mountain Film Festival is in the diary (24 – 27 April). I love being in the mountains so on a weeknight in the city, this is the next best thing.
I like to get out into the great outdoors to hike and climb hills – tackling a section of the South West Coast Path is one of my favourite local weekend activities. In the city, I go to the gym and also enjoy a bit of indoor climbing (bouldering). I’m a bit of a fair-weather runner, so I’ll probably be dusting off my running shoes and bringing them out of winter hibernation at some point this month!
