Michelle McDowell receives lifetime achievement award

Michelle McDowell, chair of civil and structural engineering at BDP, has been given a Lifetime Achievement award at the Women in Construction Awards. The event, which took place on 26 March, was held at the BDP designed Emirates Old Trafford.

Michelle said “It is an honour and privilege to win this award and to have such a fantastic platform to show that success in engineering really is achievable for women.

There remain many barriers to overcome in engineering, from giving schoolgirls the right message to encouraging students to select sciences to retaining women in our profession. Awards like this really help address those barriers.”

With nearly 30 years’ experience in engineering spanning many sectors Michelle is very active in the civil engineering profession and was the first ever female chair of the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE). In 2010 she was awarded an MBE for services to the construction industry and was named Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year. Working hard to attract and retain talent in the industry she set up a BDP scheme at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge to provide bursaries to female students of engineering.

On the night Phil Simcock, civil and structural engineering director from BDP’s Manchester studio, also presented the Best New Starter/Apprentice under 25 award to Hannah Rathbone of Atkins.