Abstract
Sophie won the IET Sir Henry Royce Medal for Young Professionals at the annual IET Achievement Awards. She was also the 2017 winner of the BAE Systems Bee Beamont award, recognising an exemplar newly qualified Engineer.
She was also BAE Systems Technical Graduate of the Year 2016, SEMTA Graduate of the Year 2017 and was named in the Telegraph’s Top 50 Women in Engineering list. She gained Chartered Engineer status with the RAeS in 2017, after challenging the by-laws of the society to allow her to do so at such a young age.
In 2018, she was named the IET The Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award Winner. After finishing her A-levels Sophie decided to study Mathematics at the University of Nottingham. Whilst there, she had the fortune of meeting Dr Helen Sharman, the first Briton in space. As an aspiring astronaut herself, Sophie asked Dr Sharman for advice to which she was told to consider engineering as a career.
With this in mind to help her achieve her dream she continued with her degree, focussing her studies on applied mathematics, and undertaking an internship in software engineering for BAE Systems between her third and fourth years at university. After graduating, Sophie joined BAE Systems full time on their Graduate Scheme, consisting of four engineering placements across various aircraft platforms and products, including the Eurofighter Typhoon.
For her final placement she secured the company’s first secondment to Reaction Engines, where she worked on the Skylon spaceplane, leading her to her current role in the company’s Concepts & Technology team. Sophie is an active STEM ambassador and inspirational public science and engineering communicator. As well as developing and running aerodynamics themed workshops, she discusses the engineering vision for space and hypersonic transport and shows that women like herself are an integral part to that vision.
Sophie is also setting up a non-profit to enable schools and institutions to video call engineers and scientists in the classroom, to make sure that no child misses the opportunity of a career in STEM due to their geographical location.
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