Designing next-gen weapons and using engineering skills in disaster relief

Holli Kimble on designing next-gen weapons and using engineering skills in disaster relief.

As a teenager, Holli Kimble dreamed of joining the army. Today, the 31-year-old mechanical engineer leads a team developing weapons for the UK Armed Forces and in her free time volunteers with a charity that sends her to disaster-stricken areas all over the world.

At the age of 15, a classmate inspired Holli to join the Army Cadets. She never looked back. From then on, she knew her future would be somehow related to the military forces. A degree in mechanical engineering seemed like a suitable way in – one that would make her not just an ordinary soldier.

“I have always liked solving problems and I see this as what engineering is,” says Holli, a graduate of the University of Exeter. “You have to be able to learn lots of things very quickly and then apply them in different situations.”

Originally, Holli had her heart set on the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. But after graduation she got a coveted spot on the Defence Engineering and Science Group (DESG) Graduate Scheme, one of the best graduate development programmes for engineers and scientists in the UK, and joined Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) instead. Today, she works as a chief engineer injecting innovative technology into new weapons projects. 

“I work on developing new concepts for trials,” says Holli. “It’s cutting-edge technology and it involves a lot of learning about science and technology behind these systems.”

Despite her nearly life-long passion for the military, Holli’s interests have always been far more eclectic. While travelling during a 14-month sabbatical in 2017, she discovered Team Rubicon UK, a charity, which relies on the skills of armed forces veterans, emergency service workers, as well as civilians, to help in disaster situations.

“Team Rubicon enables me to become a part of something that makes a real difference in the lives of people who are going through their worst time,” she says. “We are able to deploy internationally within 72 hours of a disaster and can send a small team to conduct reconnaissance to find out the scale of devastation, providing data to governments and larger NGOs, which might need more time to mobilise.”

In April this year, Holli led a 17-day mission to Mozambique, ravaged by Cyclone Idai. It was her first deployment abroad and certainly an intense one. Her team was the first to reach remote villages cut off by floodwaters for weeks.

“When we were landing with our helicopters, we saw an unbelievable level of devastation,” says Holli. “Corn fields that should be ready for harvest completely under water, villages with almost no roofs intact, all the food washed away. It was very moving  to see those people coming out of the villages and be able to reassure them that somebody cares.”

Holli is already planning another trip to a developing country. She has been awarded a Fellowship by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust to visit intriguing engineering and scientific projects in Africa and use this information to create educational materials to promote societal benefits of STEM disciplines to UK school children.  First, she is heading to a charity in Tanzania, which trains rats to detect land mines. 

“I want to see how these rats are used and talk to the people who push the boundaries on what these rats can detect,” says Holli. “I learned about this project, which is called APOPO, when I was doing my second Master’s in explosives ordnance engineering. To be able to actually go and see what they do is fantastic.”

Holli hopes that she will be able to impart her passion and enthusiasm for STEM and the humanitarian sector to her audience and open the eyes of some of the UK school children to exciting career opportunities they might otherwise never hear about.

“I want to show them another side of science and engineering that they might not necessarily see from their careers advisors or from their lessons at school,” says Holli.