The 2020 winner of the prestigious Karen Burt Memorial Award for the best newly chartered female engineer is Tina Gunnarsson, the ‘digital transformation lead’ for Balfour Beatty Major Projects; she was nominated for the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) 22nd Karen Burt Award by the Institution of Civil Engineers.

The Award recognises the importance that Chartered status has, the winner’s own contributions to excellent practice and highlights an engineering career to others.

Sally Sudworth, head judge for the award, said: “The judges were very impressed by Tina’s commitment to sustainability, demonstrating the application of her technical skills to improve transport links at Rubavu, Rwanda.

“From learning the local language of Kinyarwandan to deliver effective communications and engagement, to promoting engineering at the local schools, Tina’s talent was evident.”

Ms Gunnarsson said: “It is an honour to have been awarded the Karen Burt Memorial Award. Dr Burt was an incredibly accomplished engineer, and to share a passion with her for recruiting and retaining women in engineering is exciting.

“Engineering has empowered me to make positive changes in our communities to improve sustainability and diversity through teamwork. I hope I can help to inspire more engineers to use their knowledge and skills to create positive changes in the world.”