I'm very pleased to be able to represent manufacturing industries in the TechWomen50 Awards, as many people associate technology awards with mainly the IT sector.

Helen Cavill

Helen graduated from the Institute for Manufacturing’s (IfM) Manufacturing Engineering Tripos in 2009, became a Chartered Engineer in 2014, and a year later, she won the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Women’s Engineering Society Prize, in recognition of her work to engage and inspire young people into STEM careers.

Helen has been shortlisted in the ‘Individual’ category. Judging will now begin to identify the final 50 winners for the TechWomen50 Awards and public voting closes on Friday November 17. You can cast a vote of support for Helen here.

The Awards are the first of their kind to focus solely on the female tech talent pipeline and recognise the impact of champions, companies and networks that are leading the way.

Helen currently works as a Manufacturing Engineer at TTP Labtech.

Here she reflects on her career in engineering so far.

“From as far back as woodwork and electronics classes at secondary comprehensive school, I have always been interested in technology. I started my engineering career in earnest at the age of 18, with a Year in Industry placement at an iron foundry in my hometown of Lincoln. I then studied Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Cambridge, graduating with a first class MEng degree in 2009.

“For the next seven years, I was the Process Improvement Manager at RPC M&H Plastics in Suffolk (a premium manufacturer of plastic bottles and caps, primarily for the personal care market), becoming a Chartered Engineer in 2014. I was responsible for introducing new technologies (such as infra-red non-contact measurement of bottle wall thickness) and troubleshooting technical issues across the different moulding and printing departments.

“Since September 2016, I have been a Manufacturing Engineer at TTP Labtech Ltd in Hertfordshire. TTP Labtech designs and manufactures robust, reliable and easy-to-use instrumentation for use in drug discovery research. I work in the area of liquid handling technology; providing engineering support for equipment that can transfer as little as 50 nano-litres of liquid at high speed using custom-made disposable nano-pipettes. This role utilises the wide breadth of my knowledge, from electrical and mechanical engineering to materials science and computer programming.

“The varied experience across all different engineering disciplines that I gained through the Cambridge Engineering Tripos has been a brilliant grounding for working in a hi-tech multi-disciplinary role. I'm very pleased to be able to represent manufacturing industries in the TechWomen50 Awards, as many people associate technology awards with mainly the IT sector.”

This article has been edited from the WeAreTechWomen website.