Choose to Challenge

Engineers discuss ED&I and safety to mark International Women’s Day

THE IChemE Safety Centre (ISC) gathered a panel of engineers to discuss equality, diversity and inclusion in safety to mark International Women’s Day.

The webinar featured Trish Kerin, Director of the ISC, Macsene Isles-Ahite, a member of IChemE’s Board of Trustees, and David Lloyd-Roach, IChemE Director of Qualifications. The theme of International Women’s Day held on 8 March was “Choose to Challenge”. Kerin said: “This is such a great theme from a safety perspective, as to challenge is one of the most critical actions that we can take to deliver safety outcomes.”

“it’s really important to understand how we can get better outcomes, both in terms of safety as well as proactivity when we have a truly inclusive environment.”

Kerin emphasised that the webinar was not just about women, and that everyone was welcome. She said that ED&I is about not excluding anybody – it’s about bringing people together. “When we talk about the impact that engineers can have on the world it’s really important to understand how we can get better outcomes, both in terms of safety as well as proactivity when we have a truly inclusive environment.”

Isles-Ahite spoke about IChemE’s ambitions on ED&I from her perspective on the Board of Trustees: “We already have very strong metrics in that we have a lot of female chemical engineers, but we want to make sure that we look at other minority groups like ethnic minorities and people with disabilities as well and extend that out.”