Following our announcement of the Women in Defence Awards 2023 finalists last week, ADM will be introducing each of our amazing finalists across the 10 categories in more detail. Today we are focusing on the finalists in Engineering.
In this category, the judges were looking for entries that exhibited outstanding engineering technical proficiency in 2022, above and beyond what would be expected by their position description. The finalists in this category all showed a dedication to their profession, and an enthusiasm to mentor and encourage younger women into the field. They also demonstrated a willingness to volunteer and promote STEM in Defence and Defence industry to a wider public audience.
Andrea House
Manager Airworthiness
Airbus Australia Pacific
Andrea is the current Manager Airworthiness at Airbus Australia Pacific. She also fills the senior aviation safety roles of Part 21J Chief of Office of Airworthiness and the Part 21G Production Manager. In 2022/23 Andrea was the Airbus representative on the Australian Association for Uncrewed Systems Military UAS Advisory Group; and the Defence Aviation Regulatory Industry Consultative Committee.
Julia Dickinson
Chief Engineer JP9102
Lockheed Martin Australia
Julia is responsible for technical oversight of the engineering aspects of Lockheed Martin’s JP9102 program. Over 2022, Julia played a key role designing a low-risk, high-resilience engineering solution for Lockheed Martin Australia’s (LMA’s) JP9102 program. This included authoring a 250-page operational document, advising on Australia’s technical context, standards, and codes, and ensuring the solution aligned with Australian spectrum management constraints. She also used her detailed understanding of Australia’s existing space capabilities to guide the selection of local project partners for JP9102.
Lauren Hassall
Engagement Lead
KBR
Lauren’s unique combination of technical skills (as a Space Engineer) and relationship skills transformed the relationship KBR had with the Electronic Warfare and Intelligence Systems SPO and delivered critical outcomes for Defence. This included understanding challenges in order to proactively articulate project outcomes and manage expectations and risk. In 2022 she applied to join the Air Force Reserves as an ELECTR Engineer in Space Command and will have her first reserve day in 2023.
Wendy Beeston
Electrical Engineer
BAE Systems Australia
In 2022 Wendy rewrote the procedures for sustainment by adopting a Plan-Do-Check-Act approach for remote area power generation, with the new procedure being less reliant on a maintainer’s skillset. Since implementation in July 2022, not a single outage has been recorded. In a resource constrained environment, Wendy applied innovative approach by conducting multiple engineering changes simultaneously. This resulted in successful completion of 4 major tasks with 60% resource savings and 3 months ahead of schedule.
The winners and Hall of Fame inductee will be announced at a gala dinner at The National Arboretum Canberra on 25 October 2023. Book your tickets here – we hope to see you there!