Hosted by Society of Automotive Engineers Australasia (SAE-A) President Martha Oplopiadis the breakfast was joined by students and those already working in the industry.

Participants gained inspiration and direction for their engineering journey from successful women engineers, who worked in the mainstream automotive sector designing and manufacturing vehicles for the Australian and international market.

Martha, who is currently Project Delivery, Metro Tunnel Project for Metro Trains Melbourne, was joined by Jacqui Lewis, Director, Global Program Delivery, Seeing Machines; Trish Seeger, Asset Program Manager, Yarra Valley Water (who despite suffering from Covid-19, joined via videoconference); Louisa de Vries, Consulting Manager, Bosch Australia Manufacturing Solutions; and Sharon Tay, Signals Control Systems Manager, Metro Trains Melbourne.

All four women have spent time in their careers in the mobility industry and all of them talked about their challenges in a profession highly dominated by male engineers.

While, there’s no doubt still some work to be done in this area, this situation has improved dramatically today due to pioneering women like Martha, Sharon, Louise and Trish and their promotion of the profession as an attractive career path.

The overall message from all four was to have a ‘can do’ attitude as they encouraged men and women to follow the path of becoming engineers.

SAE-A would like to thank co-sponsor, the Victorian Automotive Chamber of Commerce (VACC), for its support of the event.

Industry members and interested parties should keep an eye on the SAE-A newsletter and VTE Magazine for future events.

If there are any particular events you would like to see please contact SAE-A Events and Communications Manager Sabah Zaman by emailing sabah@sae-a.com.au with your ideas and feedback.