Winners of the 2026 Young Engineers of the Year
Five young engineers have won the Royal Academy of Engineering competition, which includes a £3,000 prize.
The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year competition is awarded by the RAEng with support from the Worshipful Company of Engineers.
This year, the award is recognising:
- Overall winner: Brogan MacDonald, Head of Sustainability in Building Structures at Ramboll UK – helping to shape Ramboll’s strategy for sustainable change and drives delivery of low-carbon, resource efficient outcomes across the built environment. She also encourages women in STEM and sustainability, mentoring and inspiring the next generation.
- Laura Tuck, Research and Development Lead at The Washing Machine Project – designing manual washing machines for women and girls in underserved communities who often carry the challenging workload of handwashing clothes.
- Dr Douglas Brion, Co-Founder and CEO of Matta – giving factories the ability to autonomously sense defects, reason through root causes, and ultimately optimise production in real time.
- Dr Aakeen Parikh, Research Manager for the Vehicle Futures Hub at Imperial College London – bringing together academia and industry to accelerate the deployment of future vehicle technologies, as well as producing reusable sanitary pads for women and girls in Rwanda from local waste resources.
- Alexia Williams MBE, Technical Lead at Rolls-Royce – developing and delivering through-life technical strategies to improve the in-service performance and reliability of key assets, as well as organising the first-ever Rolls-Royce Defence Family Open Evening in Bristol.
MacDonald is also receiving the Sir George MacFarlane Medal for her work on finding the best ways to reuse building materials like concrete and steel to make the construction industry more sustainable, aiding the restoration and protection of the natural environment.
