Dawn Bonfield MBE FREng FICE FIStructE FIMMM FWES [1] is a materials engineer and founder and director of Towards Vision, [2] a company which aims to work towards a vision of diversity and inclusion in engineering. She is past president and former chief executive of the Women's Engineering Society (WES), [3] [4] and in 2018 was an ambassador for the Year of Engineering, [5] [6] promoting engineering careers through a roadshow aimed at meeting parents.
A materials engineer by profession, training and experience - having studied materials science at Bath University - Bonfield has worked at AERE Harwell, Citroen Research Centre (Paris), British Aerospace (Bristol), MBDA (Stevenage), and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (London). [3]
In 2017, Bonfield was appointed a Visiting Professor of Inclusive Engineers at Aston University, [7] developing undergraduate content on inclusive engineering to equip the next generation of engineers with the skills and competencies they need to be inclusive. She also co-founded IncEng in 2017, [8] a platform to bring together under-represented groups in engineering.
Bonfield joined the council of the Women's Engineering Society in 2011 and was elected president in 2014. [9] She then became CEO in 2015. [3] Bonfield was the founder of National Women in Engineering Day in 2014 and in 2015 established the inaugural 50 Women in Engineering List with the Daily Telegraph. [3] [10] She established and still runs the "Magnificent Women" schools outreach project and website, [11] and the Sparxx project to support STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students. [12] She is a STEM ambassador who regularly promotes engineering and materials in schools.
In 2015 Bonfield won a WISE Award [13] and an Association Congress Award for the INWED campaign, [6] and in 2016 she won the SEMTA Skills Diversity Award. [14] In 2016 she was a Finalist in the Airbus GEDC Diversity Award, [15] and in 2017 she won the Women's Business Council STEM 'Starting Out' award. [16]
She was made MBE in the 2016 Queen's Birthday Honours list [17] [18] for 'Services to the promotion of diversity in engineering'.
Bonfield has been a member of the following groups:
The Women's Engineering Society is a United Kingdom professional learned society and networking body for women engineers, scientists and technologists. It was the first professional body set up for women working in all areas of engineering, predating the Society of Women Engineers by around 30 years.
Catalyst Inc. is a global nonprofit founded by feminist writer and advocate Felice Schwartz in 1962. Schwartz also served as Catalyst's president for 31 years.
Megan J. Smith is an American engineer and technologist. She was the third Chief Technology Officer of the United States and Assistant to the President, serving under President Barack Obama. She was previously a vice president at Google, leading new business development and early-stage partnerships across Google's global engineering and product teams at Google for nine years, was general manager of Google.org, a vice president briefly at Google[x] where she co-created WomenTechmakers, is the former CEO of Planet Out and worked as an engineer on early smartphones at General Magic. She serves on the boards of MIT and Vital Voices, was a member of the USAID Advisory Committee on Voluntary Aid and co-founded the Malala Fund. Today Smith is the CEO and Founder of shift7. On September 4, 2014, she was named as the third U.S. CTO, succeeding Todd Park, and serving until January, 2017.
Heather Patricia Melville is a British banker, the Senior Managing Director of Teneo and Chancellor of the University of York, UK.
In 2016 the Women's Engineering Society (WES), in collaboration with the Daily Telegraph, produced an inaugural list of the United Kingdom's Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering, which was published on National Women in Engineering Day on 23 June 2016. The event was so successful it became an annual celebration. The list was instigated by Dawn Bonfield MBE, then Chief Executive of the Women's Engineering Society. In 2019, WES ended its collaboration with the Daily Telegraph and started a new collaboration with The Guardian newspaper.
Rimla Akhtar is a British businesswoman and sports administrator, who champions inclusivity in sport. She was the first person who publicly identified themselves as an Asian, Muslim woman on the Football Association Council. She has spoken many times on the need for sports to adapt to accommodate Muslim athletes, and has called for an increase in diversity within sports and football.
Alice Wairimu Nderitu is a Kenyan national serving since November 2020 as the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
Roma Agrawal is an Indian-British chartered structural engineer based in London. She has worked on several major engineering projects, including the Shard. Agrawal is also an author and a diversity campaigner, championing women in engineering.
Erica Joy Baker is an engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chief Technology Officer for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and known for her outspoken support of diversity and inclusion. She has worked at companies including GitHub, Google, Slack, Patreon, and Microsoft. She gained prominence in 2015 for starting an internal spreadsheet where Google employees reported their salary data to better understand pay disparities within the company. Kara Swisher of Recode called Baker the "woman to watch" in a profile in C Magazine.
Adrienne Stiff-Roberts is an American electrical engineering and Jeffrey N. Vinik Professor of Electrical and computer engineering at Duke University. Her research is on novel hybrid materials for optoelectronic and energy devices.
Carrie Anne Philbin is an English teacher of computer science and an author. She is a director of educator support at the Raspberry Pi Foundation and chairs the Computing At School (CAS) diversity and inclusion group, #CASInclude. She wrote the computing book Adventures in Raspberry Pi (2013) for teenagers. She runs the YouTube channel Geek Gurl Diaries and in 2017, was the host for Crash Course Computer Science.
Isabel Helen HardwichMInstP was an English electrical engineer, an expert in photometry, and fellow and president of the Women's Engineering Society.
Clara Michelle Barker is a British engineer and material scientist. In 2017 she received the Points of Light award from the UK Prime Minister's Office for her volunteer work raising awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. The outcome of this was her rise as a significant role model to the LGBT+ community.
Rebecca Jane Lunn is a Professor and Head of the Centre for Ground Engineering and Energy Geosciences at the University of Strathclyde. I
Jan Peters is an engineer, consultant and campaigner for diversity and inclusion in STEM. Peters was Head of the Government SET for Women Unit from 1999 until 2002 and was the UK National Expert on Women and Science to the European Commission. She published a strategic plan and has commissioned research on women returners and minority ethnic scientists and engineers. She also led a study into the challenges of finding well fitting safety clothing for women. From 2008 to 2011, Peters was the President of the Women's Engineering Society. At the Royal Society, she was the first Equality and Diversity Manager.
Clarice Evone Phelps (née Salone) is an American nuclear chemist researching the processing of radioactive transuranic elements at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). She was part of ORNL's team that collaborated with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research to discover tennessine. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) recognizes her as the first African-American woman to be involved with the discovery of a chemical element.
Mamta Singhal MBE BEng MSc MBA CEng FIET FWES is a design engineer and an active campaigner on diversity in engineering. In 2022 she was awarded an MBE in the New Years Honours for services to engineering. In 2007, she was awarded the Women's Engineering Society Prize for engaging and inspiring young people's interest in STEM.
Kirsten Bodley is the British current chief executive of the Institute of Asset Management and former chief executive officer of the Women’s Engineering Society.
María Ángeles Martín Prats is a Spanish engineer and entrepreneur. She is the director of aeronautical research within the University of Seville's ICT-109 Electronic Technology Group, a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and founder of the spin-off Skylife Engineering. She is a board member of the Partnership of a European Group of Aeronautics and Space Universities (PEGASUS), and is the European university coordinator of the European Defence Agency (EDA). She is also a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Commission's Clean Sky Joint Undertaking. In 2015, she was granted the Order of Civil Merit by King Felipe VI, and in 2018 she received the Ada Byron Award from the University of Deusto.
Renetta Garrison Tull is an American electrical engineer, global policy strategist, and works to advance diversity and inclusion in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Tull is the inaugural Vice Chancellor of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at University of California, Davis and a founding Director of the National Science Foundation funded program PROMISE: Alliances for Graduate Education and Professoriate, which aims to increase the number of underrepresented students in STEM. Tull previously served as Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and was also the Director of Graduate and Professional Pipeline Development for the University System of Maryland (USM) where she also served as the co-Principal Investigator and co-director of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. On a global scale, Tull was selected as the keynote speaker for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) event on the Commission on the Status of Women in Engineering Fields, and was the only American and only female finalist for the Global Engineering Deans Council Airbus Diversity Award in 2015.