We are delighted to begin 2025 with an exciting collaboration event, bringing together the Engineering Club, the Women's Engineering Society, and Engineers Ireland. This special occasion will feature a talk from the renowned Dervilla Mitchell DBE, as she reflects on her favourite projects and remarkable experiences over her 40-year career.

Dervilla will share how projects big and small have provided both challenge and opportunity. She will also look forward and talk about the changing role of engineering in a more technology enabled world and how we might play our part in delivering transformational societal change.

Dervilla Mitchell DBE is former Deputy Chair of Arup Group. She trained as a civil engineer and in her early career worked in Dublin and Boston before moving to the UK. She has been involved in a wide range of projects starting as a structural design engineer, moving to be a design manager of multidisciplinary teams, and laterally leading the design of major building projects. Prior to her role as Deputy Chair, she was Executive Chair of the UK, India, Middle East and Africa Region of Arup responsible for over 6000 people and has for many years, been Arup’s Global Ethics Director.

A large part of her career has been involved with aviation, designing terminal buildings including T5 Heathrow, T2 Dublin and more recently Abu Dhabi Midfield Terminal. Other notable projects include Portcullis House, Westminster, and the Athletes Village for London 2012, but she has also found challenge and enjoyment in smaller projects such as the Saga HQ in Folkestone and the Goodwood Paddock redevelopment working with Michael Hopkins and Partners architects.

She was a member of the Prime Ministers Council for Science and Technology for the last decade which has led her into greater involvement on the Net Zero agenda. She now chairs the National Engineering Policy Centre’s decarbonising working group and has overseen a range of publications and engagement with UK Government. She has been active in championing diversity in the construction sector and supported initiatives to encourage young people to consider engineering as a career.

Alongside a number of industry awards, Dervilla has received a DBE for services to engineering in 2024 and been awarded honorary doctorates from University College Dublin in 2016 and Imperial College, London in 2021.