Trailblazing Women in Engineering

Sydney engineering leader Dr Marlene Kanga AO has challenged the status quo throughout her career. Excelling and making a significant contribution to complex engineering safety problems, she has also been a tireless advocate for greater diversity and inclusion in science and engineering.

In 2022, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for her outstanding efforts. A BESydney Global Ambassador and former BESydney board member, Dr Kanga believes science and engineering are the keys to solving the most significant challenges of our times, especially in addressing climate change and developing the innovations needed to enable our pathway to a net zero carbon emission future.

Meetings in global cities like Sydney , she says, are essential to bring the world’s brightest science and engineering minds together to solve the wicked problems of the world.

Dr Marlene Kanga was the National President of Engineers Australia (2013), only the second woman and first Asian-born person to hold this position in the institution’s 93-year history. She is also the former president of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations – representing more than 100 professional engineering institutions from around the world and 30 million engineers – from 2017 to 2019.

During this time, she successfully led a proposal for the UNESCO member states to declare 4 March as World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development. Now a globally recognised day, it is celebrated around the world with hundreds of events, attracting millions on social media and importantly, shining a spotlight on the role and impact of engineering on our modern world.

Dr Kanga has spent her life in the service of engineering in order to help build a better world. She currently volunteers as the Chair of the Institution of Chemical Engineers Global Safety Centre, sharing best practices for process safety in the world’s most hazardous industries.

Today, one of her primary roles is chair of Rux Energy, a Sydney startup focused on accelerating the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate industries through innovations in hydrogen storage. Based at Sydney’s deep tech accelerator, Cicada Innovations , Rux Energy is actively involved in scaling up the manufacturing of advanced hydrogen adsorption materials in partnership with academic institutions like the University of Sydney and UNSW.

“Sydney is really a hub of innovation,” Dr Kanga says. “We have the best and brightest companies here advancing new technologies. We’ve got a great ecosystem where we can work together. At Rux Energy, we are developing nanoporous materials that will adsorb hydrogen and thus become an energy storage device. We’re working with universities in Sydney and with industry partners based in Sydney. There’s a synergy that occurs because each of us is bringing something to the table, and that diversity is playing into a bigger and better outcome, which we would not necessarily have anywhere else.

“Importantly, many of the brilliant scientists and engineers at Rux Energy are first-generation migrants, who have come to Sydney to study or visit and stayed on to solve the world’s most pressing problems.

“Sydney is quite remarkable in that when we have events that bring innovators to the city, they see what a beautiful city it is. They see the facilities here, and we grow networks and make connections. People come from all parts of the world to live and work here. These connections are important because, with climate change  upon us, we have an existential threat. It’s the biggest challenge the world has faced, and only scientists and engineers can solve it. It’s our scientists and engineers who think about the problems, think about the solutions and then design and implement them. It’s vitally important because these challenges are global. They know no boundaries.”

Dr Kanga has experienced the power of meetings to bring about major change. In 2011, she led the International Conference for Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES15), the first time such an event had been held in Australia for women in STEM. Women engineers from around the world flew to Australia for this trailblazing conference.

“It was a huge event,” Dr Kanga says. “We were able to give travel awards to women from Asia and Africa, and it was an eye-opener for them. We formed a new network, the International Network for Women Engineers and Scientists (INWES), Asia-Pacific Nation Network, and that network has gone from strength to strength

“The nine new networks that formed out of the conference are in countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Vietnam, Mongolia and the Philippines. There’s now 17 organisations, a whole power in those networks. It’s not just a social get-together – we provide mentoring and support for hundreds of women.

“As these networks grow and mature, those women who lead them learn to lead and then go on to advocacy. They discover they have a voice together – a collective voice. Then, they can talk to government. The association Korean Women Scientists and Engineers, for example, are very successful in talking to the Korean government and addressing some of the issues of women in STEM in their country. Some from Korea, Mongolia and other nations, have become politicians. These events create a huge legacy, and similar events in Sydney create similar legacies.”

Dr Marlene Kanga is working to change Australia’s perception that engineering is a male-dominated field.

“In many countries in Asia, 40 to 50 per cent of engineering students are women, and they go on to have great careers,” she says.

To advocate for women in engineering, Dr Kanga initiated the GREE Women in Engineering Prize at the World Federation of Engineering Organisations in 2018. This is the first global award to acknowledge and give visibility to outstanding women engineers for professional excellence, it aims to promote gender diversity and inclusion.

She is also Co-Chair of the Elevate program, a multimillion-dollar program run by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) for women and non-binary people in STEM careers.

“It provides scholarships for women to study STEM and for STEM-qualified professionals to take leadership courses. It’s an important project to increase diversity. We haven’t started to see the impact just yet, but we’re very proud of it,” she says, “and we’re working to expand its reach with support from industry”.

While programs like these are vital for promoting diversity and inclusion in STEM, Dr Kanga says we need to see more change at the university level and in industry.

“The culture in universities needs to change, and we need to make change more broadly in the industry,” she says.

Still, there has been a great deal of change from her first days working in the industry.

“I realise now that all my life, I was on the leading edge of the need for a diverse and inclusive engineering profession. I love the fact that I’ve made life better for people. People say, ‘How do you do so much? How do you find the energy?’ I find the energy because I love it.”

To learn why Sydney is the best place to hold a science and engineering meeting, download our ebook: Change Starts Here