Council, Board and Committee Biographies H-Z

PE CEng FIMechE

• Nominations Committee

Based in Texas, Stuart brings an international perspective to NomCo.

He has more than 10 years’ experience volunteering for the IMechE, having previously held the roles of Americas Region Chair on the International Strategy Board and Council, and Americas Young Members Representative.

Stuart has over 15 years’ experience working in the aerospace and oil & gas industries in Europe and across North America.  He has worked as a mechanical hardware test engineer, a facilities engineer, and more recently as a project manager on oil & gas processing facilities and infrastructure projects.  His current role is in carbon capture & storage business development across the Americas.

• Nominations Committee - Trustee Board Representative

Raymond has been a member of the IMechE since 1968, Chartered since 1977 and Fellow since 2014. He was founding chair of the Germany Group, European Chair from 2016-2019 and ISB Chair from 2019 to 2020 handing over to a non-Trustee Chair as part of the Governance Review implementation. He is Vice Chair of the TBAC and has judged Formula Student since 2012 and the Apprentice Automation Challenge since 2017. A long time PRI interviewer, he was International Representative on QMB from 2016 to 2020.

After a five-year University Apprenticeship in Grantham, he joined a machine tool manufacturer, in the UK (London and Newcastle) for seven years, Australia (Melbourne) for eight years and Germany (Frankfurt area) for 34 years (with a two year delegation to Belgium). His work as Regional Manager has taken him to many countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

• Diversity and Inclusion Committee

• Implementation Group

Joanna has worked in the charity sector for over 25 years focusing on volunteer relations; membership development; diversity and inclusion and international development. She is a member of IMechE's senior leadership team; as Member Operations Director, she is responsible for the delivery of volunteer support, member facing services and enhancing the member experience globally.

In her spare time Jo enjoys coaching, volunteering, football and growing fruit and veg on her allotment!

In her role within IMechE, Jo is passionate about striving to achieve a work environment in which all individuals members and staff are treated fairly and respectfully, have equal access to opportunities and resources, and can contribute fully to the Institution’s success.

• Council Leadership Committee

Member of Relevance Sub Group, Member of COVID-19 Task Force, IMechE Lead for Department for Transport request for assistance, Education Officer NE Region, Member of Tyne & Wear Panel IMechE,

Mark is currently leading a number of startup initiatives and businesses. Mark's career started in manufacturing and then moved to the commercial area of the North East regional universities, brokering innovation and technology support, dealing with well over 3000 projects.

Previous roles include Chairman of the NE Region and the Tyne & Wear Panel IMechE for well over a decade.  His current focus is “hands on” volunteering. Other roles include serving as a Lt Col Army Reserve Officer as well as operating as a STEM Ambassador with Primary Engineer, Greenpower, Bloodhound and Bring it On. Lt Col Jackson’s most recent role involved working to help coordinate the military response to the COVID-19 crisis in the North East. As soon as this duty was complete it was possible to get heavily involved in the IMechE COVID-19 Task Force. Anyone wanting to discuss how to turn the "science" into an engineering solution is encouraged to reach out.

CEng

• Council Leadership Committee

Chrisma is a Chartered Engineer and a Senior Project Manager at Transport for London.  She has over 15 years’ experience in the Railway industry and is jointly responsible for renewing the track and drainage infrastructure across all of London Underground’s network. She was also a Top100 We are the City 2020 winner in the Science and Engineering category.

Chrisma has been a member of the North West London Committee since 2016 and the Greater London Region Committee since 2018 where she leads the social media for both groups.

• Council Leadership Committee - Secretary

In his professional career, Chris was a train maintenance engineering manager and subsequently the Managing Director of passenger train operating companies.  He became a member of Council in 2015 as Chair of the Railway Division, then subsequently from 2019 as an elected fellow.

In July 2019 he became Deputy Chair and Secretary of the Council Coordinating Committee (CCC), supporting CCC and Council colleagues with changes to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Council.

In October 2020 he was elected to the new Council Leadership Committee, becoming its Secretary.  He is also a member of the Council Governance Subgroup and has been much involved in drafting an updated Constitution and Terms of Reference for Council. He is committed to efforts to ensure that the Institution’s past problems are resolved and cannot be repeated.

• Diversity and Inclusion Committee

Kristina graduated with a BSc in Organisational Psychology and Behavioural Economics from City University of London. She joined IMechE in 2017 supporting education and the Institution's student and apprentice challenge portfolio. She is now actively involved in developing, leading and embedding the D&I agenda across all areas of the Institution.

Kristina is passionate about inclusion and improving quality of life through her meaningful work at the IMechE, hence her active and keen interest in D&I. In her spare time Kristina enjoys doing sports, hiking, and travelling the world.

CEng, MIMechE

• Diversity and Inclusion Committee

Dipak is presently working as a Senior Reliability Engineer at Liberty Primary Steel in Whyalla, South Australia, Australia. He has 20 years' experience in reliability, maintenance, asset integrity and project management. 

Dipak joined IMechE as an Affiliate Member in 1997. He is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer (CEng, MIMechE); Chartered Professional Engineer (MIEAust CPEng) through Engineers Australia; Registered Professional Engineer Queensland (RPEQ - Board of Professional Engineers, Queensland), and Professional Engineer Qatar.

Dipak has been a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee since 2010 and is passionate about promoting engineering to school students and in particularly female students.

MEng (Oxon) DPhil CEng FIMechE, SFHEA

• Nominations Committee

Claire Lucas is a Professor of Engineering Teaching and Learning in the Department of Engineering at King’s College London where she leads engineering education research and implementation. Previously, Claire was Director of Studies for General, Biomedical and Systems Engineering at Warwick University using her industrial experience as a mathematical modelling specialist at Jaguar Land Rover where she carried out and managed capability improvement projects and multi-physics modelling.

Claire is a Fellow of IMechE, a QAA subject specialist reviewer for Engineering, an academic accreditor for the IET and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She acts as a Professional Review volunteer for the IMechE.

In December 2019, Claire was awarded the Women’s Engineering Society Prize at IET’s Young Women Engineer of the Year ceremony and in 2020 Claire was named one of the top 50 Women in Engineering for her work in engineering education.

PhD MEng CEng FIMechE SFHEA MWES

• Nominations Committee

Aziza graduated with a MEng Mechanical Engineering degree from Durham University. Following this, she completed a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in biomaterials at the School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Birmingham.  This was followed by Research Fellow posts, which involved research on spinal implants in the Biomedical Engineering Group (University of Birmingham), during which time she became a Chartered Engineer (MIMechE; 2011).

In 2012, she was seconded to DePuySynthes (Johnson & Johnson) as a Marie Curie Experienced Research Fellow. She returned to the University and was appointed as a Lecturer in August 2017 and in August 2019, as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering. She became a FIMechE in September 2019. Alongside her current post she holds a school senior leadership role as the Head of Education for the School.

Aside from her Academic profile, in December 2020 she joined the IMechE Nominations Committee as an Ordinary Member.

• BSc(Hons) FCIBSE FIMechE MASHRAE
• Real Estate Strategy Group

Frank is a leading specialist in sustainable and energy efficient building engineering design. His experience includes the design, management, supervision, construction and operation of building services engineering across a range of building types including sports stadia, large-scale mixed-use developments sports facilities, leisure centres and hotels, retail and community schemes - both in the United Kingdom and internationally.

• Real Estate Strategy Group

David Nowell is a Fellow of the Institution and has been a Trustee since 2019. He is currently a member of the Technology Strategy Board and the Education and Skills Strategy Board as well as the Real Estate Strategy Group. His career started in the rail industry, but he has spent most of his life in education and research. He is currently Professor of Machine Dynamics at Imperial College, where he researches structural integrity and is Director of the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre in Vibration. David served for 30 years on the governing body of an Oxford College (Christ Church) and has experience of finance, endowment management and historic building renovation. In his limited leisure time, David enjoys sailing, open water swimming, walking and gardening.

• Diversity and Inclusion Committee

Margaret-Anne is a corporate communications manager providing advice to the D&I committee on promoting their campaigns and increasing engagement from members, employees and key external stakeholders.

She joined the Institution in 2018 after working as media relations manager at UCL. Margaret-Anne’s background is as a journalist at Reuters – she started her career as a foreign correspondent in Chile and then returned to London to work on the energy news desk.

Margaret-Anne is a keen cyclist, hiker and enjoys gardening on her roof terrace.

OBE BSc(Eng) CEng Hon DSc Hon FIET FIMechE FCGI

• Diversity and Inclusion Committee - Chair
• Nominations Committee - Chair

Isobel is the IMechE Past President and Chair of the IMechE Pension Scheme responsible for investment assets of ~ £55 million.

Isobel graduated from Imperial College, London in 1976 and became FIMechE in 1991.

As Patron of WES (Women’s Engineering Society), she works with WISE (Women into Science and Engineering) and is one of the Top 50 Women in Engineering announced in 2016.

Appointed OBE in 2015 for services to mechanical engineering. Awarded Honorary DSc from Huddersfield University in 2004 and from the University of Leeds in 2016. FCGI in 2010 for services to engineering and in 2016, awarded Honorary Fellow of the IET.

Isobel continues to promote the importance of measurement through her BEIS & NPL appointments and as a British Hallmarking Council member.

• Real Estate Strategy Group

Benjamin is a Chartered Engineer (Fire), Chartered Engineer (Mechanical) and Partner at Foster + Partners, where he is the Head of Fire Safety. Paramount among his primary drivers is early and integrated conscientious fire safety design - unlocked through iterative creation, multi-objective optimisation, and quantitative risk-based engineering analysis.

One of Benjamin’s core values is continued learning and growth - he gets his biggest kick from developing and using cutting-edge science and engineering to drive informed decisions, unlock aspirations, and meet society's expectations for a safer future.

Benjamin is passionate about diversity and inclusion - especially fostering the achievements of people with learning differences and advocating design of spaces for all abilities and neurodiversities.

Benjamin’s areas of technical expertise are fire experimentation and CFD-based fire modelling. His current research topics are centred on the quantitative analysis of total building systems and the development of risk-based decision making tools.

• Diversity and Inclusion Committee - Trustee Representative
• Real Estate Strategy Group

Helena is a Director at AECOM where she is focused on supporting her clients in decarbonising their existing built estate.

She was recognised in 2019 as one of the top 100 most influential women in engineering.

Helena has throughout her career sought to break down perceived barriers to entry into a career in engineering. She believes that mechanical engineering has a huge role in shaping our future and that we need to attract and retain engineering talent from all walks of life to benefit from diversity of thought and approach.

FIMechE

• Chair, Council Leadership Committee

Martin started work at 16 in a small fabrication business. He won a place at Imperial College, a sponsorship from British Rail and enrolled on the IMechE’s Monitored Profession Development Scheme. After graduating and several years as a maintenance supervisor he joined Air Products’ internal audit and financial controllership – modelling project finance for cryogenic plants. A change of direction came as a performance consultant using process and behavioural change techniques in various engineering dependent businesses in the UK and USA.  

This foundation led to a twenty-five-year career with engineering consultants Atkins and latterly Jacobs, embracing Oil and Gas in Brunei and Venezuela, ports, railways, water, waste, power, property and IT/IS programmes.

For the last decade Martin has been focused on providing technical and commercial due diligence for mergers and acquisitions of utilities, and project finance – notably for the world’s longest heated oil pipeline and Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.

• Real Estate Strategy Group

Ruth is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the IMechE. As a volunteer she is a member of Council, The Construction and Building Services Division and Real Estate Strategy Group. Previously Ruth was the chair of the Young Member’s Board.

Professionally, Ruth is an Associate at RWDI where she is focussed on the delivery of specialist climate consulting on major building and infrastructure projects worldwide. As well as providing technical expertise in complex fluid flows around buildings, Ruth is responsible for RWDI’s UK strategic business development.

• International Strategy Board

Dr Vinesh Thiruchelvam has over 25 years of experience in education/academics, ICT, operations & maintenance, facility management, design and project management serving various industries ranging from building services/property, oil & gas, district cooling plants, co-generation power plants and the ports industry.

He has managed deliveries of international projects valued at GBP 1.18 Billion (1998-2012) in the Maldives, India, Russia, Iran, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia as the Key Accountable Design Engineering personnel. Prof Vinesh has also been an active researcher having obtained industry consultancy/research grants at GBP 5.5 million (2008-2012) and university research grants at GBP 210,088 (2014 to date).

He is currently the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research & Innovation) and Chief Innovation Officer for the Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation/APIIT Education Group. Prof Vinesh has led or has been part of various Malaysian national driven strategic blueprints for Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, STEM Education, Digital Expert Panel and Engineering/Architectural Graduates. He is a Professional Engineer with the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM), Professional Technologist with the Malaysian Board of Technologist (MBOT) and a Fellow with IMechE. For international volunteer services, Prof Vinesh has been the IMechE Malaysia branch chair (2017-2019), Process Industry SEAR rep (since 2020) and is currently the IMechE South East Asia chair (2019 to date).

He was jointly instrumental in making inroads towards the IMechE presence in Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines. Prof Vinesh also sits on the IMechE Education & Skills Strategy Board (EESB) and is the International Chair for ISO TC15/7 – Blockchain Fundamentals. Under the IMechE umbrella he has driven STEM Education in the South East Asia region at high schools (67 nos) and presented/branded IMechE at Symposiums, International Conferences & Engineering Forums (34 nos).

• Diversity and Inclusion Committee

Paul has worked for Transport for London (TfL) since 1990. He currently holds the position of Principal Engineer (Rail Vehicles) with his main focus on future staff competence requirements to deliver the Mayor’s Transport Strategy for TfL.

In 2009, Paul became a Fellow of IMechE, he is also a Fellow of IET. Paul joined the Diversity and Inclusion Committee to promote aspects of mental health and disabilities that are ‘invisible’ to ensure they are properly represented within the Committee's strategy and plans.