Young Engineers of the Year, 2022
The RAEng/Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year competition, awarded by the Royal Academy of Engineering with support from the Worshipful Company of Engineers, offers five prizes of £3,000 to early career engineers in full time higher education, research or industrial employment whose achievements are recognised as outstanding. Additionally, the Academy’s Awards Committee selects an overall winner from these five awardees who, in addition to the cash award, receives the Academy’s highly acclaimed Sir George Macfarlane Medal.
George Imafidon is a Performance Engineer working with the Team X44 electric racing team to design Extreme-E race cars. The motorsport team was founded in September 2020 and aims to draw attention to environmental issues by racing in remote locations affected by the climate crisis.
In addition to his E-racing career, George is also CEO and co-founder of Motivez, an app designed to help young people from underrepresented backgrounds access personalised opportunities, particularly within science, technology, engineering and maths.
George’s commitment to giving a platform to underrepresented voices was further evidenced by his appointment in September 2020 to the Board of Commissioners for Sir Lewis Hamilton Hon FREng’ s Commission set up jointly with the Royal Academy of Engineering to address the underrepresentation of black people in UK motorsport.
He is also featured in the 2021 series of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s This is Engineering Videos, designed to encourage young people from all backgrounds to follow what they love doing into a career in engineering.
George has been awarded the Sir George Macfarlane Medal for 2022.
photo courtesy of Mark Witter Photography
Dr Robert Hammond is a Lecturer in Infection and Global Health at the University of St Andrews whose research and translational activities have led to development of a tool that quickly enables antibiotic resistance and antibiotic susceptibility to be determined. His work has also led to a company spin out.
His work is highly innovative and is focussed upon the early diagnosis of bacterial and fungal infections in humans and animals. An important force in the interface between engineering and medicine, a device that he conceived, developed and engineered during his PhD can identify the antibiotics that a bacterial infection is susceptible to.
In recognition of his innovative research, Robert won the Scottish Innovation of Year award in 2018.
He is a world-renowned authority on concrete decarbonisation, durability, cracking and technology. His deep technical knowledge delivers huge carbon savings for clients across many sectors, and he is driving industry-wide innovation through shaping technical standards in the UK and internationally.
He is passionate about passing on his expertise and developing the next generation of engineers. Alongside chairing and participating in national and international scientific committees, he devotes time to teaching, lecturing and training engineers, and organising training courses and workshops on sustainable design of concrete.
Dr Matthew Marson is the Global Market Sector Director at Arcadis. In his career to date, he has spearheaded international advancement of smart buildings and cities, working at the intersection of engineering, technology and sustainability. Matthew’s creative and innovative portfolio includes iconic projects such as NEOM’s Industrial City, 22 Bishopsgate, The Dock in Dublin, Paddington Square and San Francisco’s Salesforce Tower.
Matthew has exhibited outstanding productivity in creativity through pioneering new techniques particularly in Intelligent Buildings technology and with linking this to addressing the industry challenges in Sustainability and the race to Net Zero Carbon. He also created a series of 30 podcasts, inviting world leading construction and technology experts to discuss the issues of smart buildings/cities and their resolutions.
Matthew joined the Company on 4th May 2022, making his Freedom Declaration at the Installation Court meeting.
Matthew is seen here receving his Young Engineers Award Certificate from Master Engineer, Audrey Canning.
photo courtesy of Mark Witter Photography
Dr Beatriz Mingo is a Materials Engineer and Presidential Fellow at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on environmentally friendly surface treatments for lightweight components used in the transport industry. Her work has been recognised internationally by the European Federation of Corrosion, the International Society of Electrochemistry and by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, amongst others. In 2016, she was awarded a Young Scientist Grant by the European Federation of Corrosion, whose objective is to promote knowledge exchange within the international corrosion community.
During her research career she has secured approximately £800k of funding as a Principal Investigator, has published 32 journal papers and has received a number of awards in recognition of her scientific excellence including the 2020 Oronzio and Niccolò De Nora Foundation Young Author Prize by the International Society of Electrochemistry. She is currently a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow.
To hear the Young Engineers talking about winning their awards: https://raeng.org.uk/programmes-and-prizes/prizes/raeng-engineers-trust-young-engineer-of-the-year
The Worshipful Company of Engineers Charitable Trust (the Engineers Trust) acknowledges excellence in engineering, supports engineering education and research, gives grants and assists in the relief of poverty.
