From art to energy: how the ELS programme empowered an engineer to drive change

University and the ELS programme

Laura didn’t initially plan to pursue engineering. Her passion for art shaped her early interests – until an opportunity through the Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award opened the door to a new path. “I didn’t realise where creativity and science met, but it’s solving engineering challenges,” she says.

Laura joined the ELS programme while studying mechanical engineering at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and used her funding to attend the Global Challenges Summit in Beijing, of which the Academy was a partner. “It really was crucial to my career,” she says.

When Laura interned at bp she didn’t shy away from the challenge of energy transition. “The inspiration I gained from that summit gave me the confidence to influence the energy industry from the inside out,” she says.

Doing ELS programme exercises, such as creating a business case for a carbon sequestration company, prepared Laura for her career. “I’m using the skills I learned during the ELS in my role now,” she says. “It got me thinking, how do I influence stakeholders and take a great idea and make it valuable?”

The network the ELS programme has given me is irreplaceable.

Career

Laura joined bp as a graduate and soon became a production support engineer in the offshore leadership team. “Being part of the leadership team meant I gained understanding of how work is conducted offshore and I needed that to become a better engineer,” she says. Laura was a mechanical engineer responsible for providing expertise and judgment in service of North Sea assets, and a carbon champion. “I worked on finding ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and how to prioritise those projects within the business,” she says.

Laura won the SPE Offshore Achievement ‘Young Professional of the Year’ award in 2018 for working with a supplier to develop an upgraded turbine air filtration system for a North Sea platform and creating a business case to get stakeholder buy-in. “That resulted in large cost and time savings, but more importantly emission reductions too,” she says, crediting the ELS programme with helping her develop business skills and match them with engineering knowledge to begin influencing.

She is now based in Paris working as a project manager on a first-of-a-kind power plant and carbon capture network project for the UK in Teesside. The project perfectly aligns with her ambition to contribute to society and the energy transition, with the vision to kick-start industrial decarbonisation in the UK and deliver an innovative, flexible, low-carbon power solution.

Giving back

Laura is a passionate mentor and STEM ambassador, committed to breaking down barriers for future generations. She has chaired the IMechE Young Member’s Panel, served on the Engineering Development Trust board, and regularly hosts inspirational events in schools worldwide. A keen traveller, she integrates her outreach with global experiences - most recently working with a school in Nepal to promote the UN Sustainable Development Goals. “When I engage with many of the younger generation, they claim they aspire to be ‘influencers’, so let’s foster that to influence the right things. We need creativity and influence to change the trajectory of the world.”