WIM3 | International Women Breaking the Bias

Dr Debra Carr CF CEng FIMMM FCSFS MIKE

Innovation Partner, Defence and Security Accelerator, Scotland (DASA)

Dr Debra Carr is the Defence and Security Accelerator's Innovation Partner in Scotland. She is a materials engineer by training, a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the IOM3 and of the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences. 

Debra's research background is in body armour and helmet optimisation, wound ballistics, clothing and textile sciences and forensic textile science. She previously worked for Cranfield University/Defence Academy of the UK (Impact and Armour Group), University of Otago (Clothing and Textile Sciences), Imperial College (Department of Mechanical Engineering) and the  Ministry of Defence (Stores and Clothing Research and Development Establishment).  

Debra is a Churchill Fellow (2012: Forensic Textile Science) and has been nominated for the Women in Defence Awards twice for her collaborative work across Defence. She has been recognised by dstl for her work with a divisional award for collaboration.

Debra's ORCID account is: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9476-2166

Professor Sohini Kar-Narayan

Professor of Device & Energy Materials, University of Cambridge

Sohini Kar-Narayan is a Professor of Device & Energy Materials in the Department of Materials Science at the University of Cambridge. She received her PhD in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 2009. Following a postdoctoral appointment at the Department of Materials Science in Cambridge, she was awarded a prestigious Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship in 2012, and a European Research Council Starting Grant in 2015. She was the recipient of a World Economic Forum Young Scientist Award in 2015, and was named as one of the top 50 Women in Engineering 2021 by the Women’s Engineering Society. Prof Kar-Narayan’s research focuses on functional nanomaterials for applications in energy, sensing and bio-medicine. She is a Co-Founder and Director of ArtioSense Ltd., a spin-out from the University of Cambridge that seeks to commercialise a novel, conformable force sensing technology for applications in orthopaedic surgery, sports medicine and beyond.

Caroline Lamy

Technical Manager - Municipal Business, Veolia Asia

Caroline Lamy work’s for Veolia, the world’s largest environmental services provider, providing water, energy, and waste treatment solutions for both municipal and industrial clients.

Caroline’s career spans over 25 years comprising work in France, Guadeloupe, and HK. Having started her career in France looking at industrial water treatment with liquid membranes for metal recovery (Cu, Zn), emulsions formulation. She then moved to Guadeloupe where she quickly took on senior roles as Deputy Operations Director, SOGEA and then Technical Department Manager, Generale des Eaux Guadeloupe, responsible for technical support to operations and BD and crisis management.

In 2010, Caroline moved to Hong Kong where she took on the role of Technical Manager – Operational Data and Performance Management, Veolia Asia, following successful implementation of improved operational data analytics and data collection tool across Asia she became Technical Manager – Municipal Business Line, Asia Technical and Performance Department.

More recently she became Technical Manager – Access to Water and Sanitation and Biowaste, for Asia Technical and Performance Department. In this role she has led the research and development of bioconversion activity for Asia in addition to her work managing a team providing technical support to drinking and wastewater treatment plants and biowaste projects across Asia.

Karen Scrivener

Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Construction Materials, EPFL, Switzerland

Karen Scrivener obtained her PhD at Imperial College in 1984. She worked for Lafarge in France for 6 years, before being appointed Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Construction Materials, at EPFL, Switzerland in 2001. In 2003 she founded the research network Nanocem bringing together the leading Industrial companies (Cement and admixtures) with European academic institute to do research on Cementitious Materials. Her research focusses on the understanding the chemistry and microstructure of cement based materials and improving their sustainability. In 2008, she came up with the idea for LC3 cement, this material has the potential to cut CO2 emissions related to cement by more than 400 million tonnes a year.  She was made a fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering in 2014.

Dr Fiona Robinson

Senior Research Fellow, University of South Wales

Dr Fiona C J Robinson is currently Faculty Support Manager for the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Science at the University of South Wales, she is also an active in electrical steels research developing new materials for electric motor applications. Since joining USW in 2020, Fiona has performed research on advanced materials for EV motors, electric motor design, simulation, build and performance testing. She has over 20 research publications in the fields of advanced materials, materials characterisation, and industrial process technology. Fiona worked in the steel industry for 28 years in a variety of roles including RD&T, Product and Process Development and Process Technology. Fiona spent nine years at Cogent Power Ltd developing GO and NGO electrical steel products and processes with particular emphasis on magnetic and metallurgical properties. Fiona has expertise and experience in steel industry through process and product data analytics including external collaborations with many industrial and academic institutions.

Fiona has a BSc(Eng.) in Metallurgy and Materials Science from Imperial College, a PhD from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Liverpool, and a specialist Technology Management MBA from the Open University. Dr Robinson is a Fellow FIMMM of the Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Materials (IOM3), lecture secretary of NCMS and a member of two IOM3 professional committees including the Board of the Energy Materials Group (EMG). The EMG is a specialist cross cutting technical group providing a focus on the materials issues in energy supply and optimisation including all forms of energy generation and advanced materials to facilitate the electrification of transport such as materials for batteries, electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.