Celebrating women in engineering: Swati Verma and Lauren Best share their journeys

Our Northern NSW engineering design team is very proud of the fact that half the team is represented by talented women who are making an invaluable contribution to Inland Rail’s latest design refinements in the region.

Two women with laptops standing at a desk with one woman pointing at a large screen displaying an aerial map

 

To celebrate the 12th annual International Women in Engineering Day (23 June), we asked two female colleagues with global experience to reflect on their careers and share advice for aspiring young women considering a career in engineering.

Swati Verma, a structural engineer with 15 years’ experience, has designed road and rail bridges, civil structures and metro stations around the world. She says being curious and open to learning has been the secret to her career success.

“Don’t be afraid to get out of your comfort zone, take risks and enjoy the journey,” Swati said.

Swati’s most challenging project was in South Korea, where she navigated language barriers to deliver complex designs for a balanced cantilevered bridge over a busy highway with many geometric constraints.

Swati has worked in the US, India, France, South Korea and Australia, with the last eight years of her career spent on various projects in Sydney, including her career highlight – the Sydney Gateway Project. Here she designed two steel composite box girder bridges which are part of a major road interchange connecting Sydney Airport to Sydney’s motorway network.

Swati’s colleague Lauren Best has tackled engineering challenges on projects in some of the most remote locations on earth, including Belize, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Mongolia.

“I once travelled to China for six months to oversee the fabrication of shipping containers that would ultimately be assembled on site in Mongolia as a multi-storey office building. It enabled me to see a different side of the country than I otherwise might have as a tourist,” Lauren explained.

What makes a good engineer?

Lauren likens engineering to “professional problem solving,” where no one day is the same.

“What truly makes a difference is the ability to think critically, approach problems logically and work through challenges methodically. You don’t have to be the world’s best mathematician,” Lauren said.

And like many other professions, those who excel have strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate in a team environment.

For Swati, it is the ability to appreciate the details but also understand the broader picture by keeping an open mind and listening to different perspectives to arrive at the best solution.

“The best thing about being an engineer is seeing your design take shape and come to life, like watching a bridge being built and being used by the community.”

Swati is excited to be working on a project of the scale of Inland Rail, which will enhance our national freight network and supply chain capabilities.

Lauren is very aware of the task ahead of her and her team as they start refining designs for the southern sites of the Narromine to Narrabri section this month.

“When considering the sheer scale of Inland Rail, I’m very conscious that our design solutions may be repeated many, many times along the alignment, so it is very important to get it right!”

Engineering may not be the first career option most young girls consider when thinking about life after high school. But, as our Northern NSW design engineers will agree, it is a challenging, interesting, creative and surprisingly intrepid career path.

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