Professor Rebecca Cheung awarded in the top 50 women in engineering

The Women’s Engineering Society awarded the winners on International Women in Engineering Day, a celebration held every year on 23 June in recognition of the achievements and contributions of women. 

As one of the first female semiconductor engineers in Scotland, Professor Rebecca Cheung’s career at the interface of physics and nanotechnology redefined micro-fabrication. She transformed the Scottish Microelectronics Centre with the installation of the UK’s first thermal scanning lithography tool.  

Transitioning from Civil to Electronic Engineering, Professor Cheung navigated a field where women are often severely underrepresented. By balancing research roles while establishing herself as a leader, she created the blueprint for other women to succeed. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and serves as Programme Chair for the international EIPBN: Electron, Ion and Photon Beam Technology and Nanofabrication conference. She is a key contributor to the School of Engineering’s Athena SWAN initiative and won the Women in Nanofabrication (WIN) Award in 2024. A gifted mentor, Professor Cheung has received praise from the global network of leaders she has supported and is described as a ‘trusted confidant’ and ‘symbol of empowerment’. 

Professor Rebecca Cheung said: 

I am honoured to have been selected as a winner, Top 50 Women in Engineering 2026. It is an exciting and worthwhile journey. I hope to continue to be a mentor for many.

The Women’s Engineering Society (WES) is a charity founded in 1919 at the end of the First World War, when women who had been employed in technical fields found it difficult to continue working as engineers. A change in the law to return women engineers to the home as other women were admitted into the civil service and legal professions led to the establishment of WES to support women in the profession.