Focus on Female Engineers with Dr. Zenan Ahmed

“I grew up seeing my Dad as my role model. And he is a civil engineer. So I saw him working with interesting tools and software. I remember he had this huge table with massive white papers. It had scribbles of buildings all over it, and a ruler that was taller than me. He also had sketches on his computer. He had lots and lots of books. And all of this really fascinated me. I would even do pretend play when he was not looking.” The wonderful quote above is from this episode’s guest, Dr. Zenan Ahmed, who is talking to Emma Nicholson as part of the series Focus on Female Engineers. Dr. Zenan Ahmed is currently a Senior Energy and Sustainability Engineer at WSP in the United Kingdom. But in her biography below you can read about more of her endeavours. “Starting early during the formative years. I think that it’s really important how each of us are brought up in our household and how the gender bias rules are passed on from one generation to another. I think it’s really important that we eradicate that preconceived notion from a very early age. And it’s not really about forcing people to be an engineer when they do not want to be an engineer. It’s more about exposure and validation and telling them look, this is also for you.”

Om Podcasten

The Constructive Voices Podcast is all about inspiring change within the construction industry. Television builder, Peter Finn, is our man on the ground who injects his decades of construction experience with his unique sense of humour into the topics he covers. Then we have the gritty, investigative journalist, Henry McDonald, who spent over 25 years writing for The Guardian Newspaper in the UK. These days he does podcasts for us and the Sunday Times and is a freelance journalist for a number of top publications. Behind the scenes, we have Jackie De Burca, who is a creative director, author, media consultant, podcast creator and presenter. We focus on finding great stories within the construction industry about organisations and people who are doing something constructive. Topics include but are not limited to inclusivity, mental and physical health, investigating organisations that are ahead of the pack when it comes to sustainability, collaboration and team building, and initiatives that do social good. We also have our eyes and ears alert for cutting edge technologies and new updates on the industry’s economy and outlook.