Visionary: Undergraduate Siobhan Kohli-Lynch

Siobhan Kohli-Lynch has won more awards than some students have written essays. The 22-year-old, who is studying in Lyons, to complete her mechanical engineering degree with French at Imperial College, London, has been named one of the first IMechE visionaries.

This honour follows a Royal Academy of Engineering Engineering Leadership Award. For two years running she won theMost Outstanding Student award in her group at Imperial College. She also made it to the finals of the Year In Industry (Contribution to Business) competition.

She was selected for an IMechE undergraduate scholarship after spending a year in industry working for Scottish Power. Now IMechE Visionary has been added to her list of honours.

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BACKGROUND

• A vision to inspire

• Crying out for new recruits

• Make science fun to catch them young

• Drive to beat engineering skills shortage

“The IMechE scholarship is worth £1,000 a year which is really useful,” she says. “It’s great to be chosen as a visionary and it will look really good on my CV. When I heard it came as a lovely surprise. I’ve tried to get involved with lots of extra things as an undergraduate, from being captain of the hockey team to leadership activities.”

One of her visions for the future is to preserve the world’s resources by using alternative energy supplies and she has already worked on a project to bring free power to rural communities.

She says: “I heard about the project at university through an organisation called Engineers Without Borders and I went on a four-week International Development Design Summit at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Boston.

“There were about 60 people, from academics to people from the developing world, divided into ten groups. I worked with a girl from Berkeley, two people from India and two from Zambia, designing a power-generating device to be attached to an irrigation pump of the type that is used by millions of small farmers across the world.

“It was great because we had access to excellent resources at MIT. The irrigation pump works like a step machine at a gym and we were told that small farms might use the pump for between two to eight hours a day. The idea is to attach a battery so at the same time the pump is bringing water up, the battery is being charged. A prototype is now being built in Zambia and we hope that the device will supply enough energy to light a home for four hours. At the moment paraffin lamps are used that give off fumes, and the paraffin has to be paid for. A battery light would be safer and free.”

Kohli-Lynch, from Glasgow, chose engineering because she likes the fact that her work will make a tangible difference to the world. “My hope is that the IMechE vision awards encourage more women to go into the career because we get to see the results of our work and can make a practical difference to people’s lives. I want to work in power generation and I’m also interested in renewable energy, the technology of nuclear power and clean coal.”

She says she hopes to continue her studies to gain a PhD but plans to return to industry for a period beforehand.

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