Leading Lights
Leading Lights is an inspiring new exhibition of portraits by award-winning photographer Richard Cannon. It showcases 19 STEM Ambassadors from all over the UK who are using science, technology, engineering and maths to push the boundaries of what is possible and to make the world a better and more exciting place to live.
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Laurie Winkless is a higher research scientist at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). She gained a BSc in Physics and Astrophysics, and went on to study a Masters in Space Science.
Laurie’s main project is for the European Space Agency, looking into the use of nanomaterials in the space industry. Nanomaterials are used in everyday products to make them lightweight and strong. However, their use in the space industry is limited and Laurie’s work is breaking new ground.
Laurie is passionate about communicating science to young people. She says, “I knew that I wanted to work in science when, at aged five, I used my first telescope to see the moon. Every scientist can pinpoint the moment or person who made them realise that science was what they wanted to do. Too many young people think science is a difficult and scary subject, and I’m committed to helping them see how fun and interesting it really is”.
Laurie is pictured outside the University of London observatory.
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Jo Carris developed a passion for sustainable technology during her undergraduate degree in Technology at the University of Birmingham. Her university studies, and internships at Arup and Scott Wilson, cemented her interest in the area. Jo started working for Laing O’Rourke as a sustainability advisor in 2006, and became qualified in assessing the environmental impact of building and civil engineering projects.
Jo now works within the Sustainability Team for London 2012, specialising in energy and waste. She is helping to ensure that the next Olympic and Paralympic Games are the greenest games in history, and is working on the installation of one of the first-ever large scale wind turbines in an urban environment.
Talking about her work, Jo says: “Being able to implement green initiatives on a project of this scale is hugely satisfying.”
Jo is pictured in front of a wind turbine at Coldham Wind Farm in Cambridgeshire.
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Clare Wood and Ben Evans are both research officers at the Civil and Computational Engineering Research Centre at Swansea University. They are working on BLOODHOUND SSC, a supersonic car which is being designed to break the world land speed record.
Clare says: “By volunteering as a STEM Ambassador I get to work with young people who are really excited by real-life challenges such as BLOODHOUND SSC. I’d like to see lots more women becoming engineers in the future.”
Ben became fascinated with airplanes as a teenager and went on to study aerospace engineering at Cambridge. Ben says: “I’m working on one of the most exciting engineering challenges in the world. It doesn’t get better than that!”
Clare and Ben are pictured in an industrial wind tunnel at Southampton University – the computational fluid dynamics supercomputing that they carry out is the modern-day equivalent of months of wind tunnel testing.
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Laurie Winkless
Higher Research Scientist, National Physical Laboratory
Jo Carris
Sustainability Team, London 2012
Ben Evans & Clare Woods
Research Officers, Swansea University
