In Ireland, just one engineer in ten is female, according to Engineers Ireland. In the UK, according to the Women’s Engineering Society, less than 10 per cent of engineering professionals are women, which is the lowest figure in Europe. Latvia, Bulgaria and Cyprus are leading the way, with female engineers making up almost 30 per cent. As World War I began to fracture the map, the National Council of Women was created in the UK in 1914, with the aim of getting women into work as men ...

The beginning of the 20th century was a seismic historical period in which advances were made in philosophy, political thinking, science, literature, engineering and equality. In particular, gradual strides in female equality were made in accessing third-level education (for those that could afford it) and subsequently in employment. As these ground-breaking women entered the workforce, they proved more than equal to their male counterparts. At first, this manifested itself by way of the ...

The public lecture by Prof Dame Ann Dowling OM DBE FRS FREng, entitled ‘Diversity and Inclusion: A Value Proposition for Engineering’, took place in Trinity College on 26 October. Prof Dowling, a world authority on combustion and acoustics, is professor of mechanical engineering and deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Cambridge and the first female president of the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE). The event marked the tenth anniversary of the WiSER (Centre for Women in Science ...

The #HackAcessDublin mobility hackathon takes place from the 25-27 November in Google Dublin. This weekend-long hackathon aims to not only to use the electricity of Dublin’s startup community to solve the city’s accessibility challenges, but to inspire and empower people with mobility problems to view the various accessibility challenges they face as entrepreneurial opportunities. The events is sponsored by Spacefox, Smart DUBLIN, Dogpatch Labs and Nissan, and supported by members of ...

The FESTA Strategic Career Manager (FESTA-SCM) is a decision support system for junior to mid-level academics and researchers. It provides individuals with a personalised career-development profile based on their responses to questions. While this system has emerged from research with a focus on women and on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), it is useful to both women and men, and to academics and researchers from disciplines outside STEM. FESTA-SCM was developed in ...

During a recent high-profile criminal trial, headlines appeared in the national newspapers stating that the victim had ‘walked into the knife’. While this scenario was surprising for some, for those working in forensic medicine, this situation poses a well-known difficult challenge. [caption id="attachment_30872" align="alignright" width="300"] Figure 1a: Experimental stab-penetration test rig[/caption] When a stabbing is fatal, the amount of force required to inflict a stab wound is ...