Alumni Profiles

From an initial grounding in our engineering disciplines, to further study in our research areas, our alumni have used their learnings at the School of Engineering to pursue careers in varied fields and industries.

Would you like to share your career journey with us? Get in touch.

We are currently piloting a new mentoring opportunity for alumni to offer advice to current students. If you are interested in helping current students through mentorship, please let us know.

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Lewis Evans

Lewis Evans

MEng (Hons) Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2012

Since graduating from university, Lewis has worked for Mott MacDonald’ water division. Working on a variety of projects in the water sector specialising in hydraulics and pipeline design. Lewis achieved chartership with the Institution of Civil Engineers in 2016.

Sam Ella

Sam Ella

Civil Engineering MEng 2010, Material Science Engineering PhD, 2014

After graduation Sam worked within the University rounding out her people skills trying to keep students and lecturers in line, before taking a job as an Engineering Project Manager within a small wind turbine installation firm, Scaled Energy. This role allowed her to develop project management skills gained through her PhD while also mixing in her love of engineering and dealing with people. The small yet fast paced firm sadly took a hit with the cuts to government funded tariffs for renewable energy. Scaled Energy funded Sam’s Practitioners PRINCE2 training adding another qualification to the list.

Vanessa Sloan

Vanessa Sloan

MEng Civil Engineering with Architecture, 2001

After graduating with a First class MEng in Civil Engineering with Architecture in 2001, Vanessa worked as a business strategist at Accenture before moving on to build a career in real estate. She is currently Partner at Patron Capital.

Chemical Engineering

Aileen Jamieson

Aileen Jamieson

BEng (Hons) Chemical Engineering, 1996

Aileen Jamieson started her career with Esso Petroleum Company at the Fawley refinery near Southampton. She held a variety of technical and commercial roles prior to attaining Chartered Engineer status in 2000.

In 2001, she moved to Wood Mackenzie where she spent over 9 years leading both oil and gas downstream research and consulting teams. In 2010, she took a Director role with project management consultancy Turner & Townsend, where Ms Jamieson is currently Global Head of performance benchmarking.

Azar Besharat-Moayeri (née Besharat)

BSc Chemical Engineering, 1967

Azar Besharat-Moayeri (née Besharat) graduated in 1967 – the first woman to graduate with a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Edinburgh. Since graduating, Azar has moved from Iran to Canada, triumphing over adversity to her hair removal product business, Parissa, into a thriving, recognised brand. Recently, Azar has again adapted to changing circumstances by turning her business over to the production of hand sanitiser during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Denise Neill (nee Forsyth)

Denise Neill

Chemical Engineering BSc (Hons) 1989

Denise joined Shell in 1989. She was posted to Gabon, West Africa for 4 years, in a variety of Operations related roles, which was useful for learning how to solve Engineering problems in a remote, environmentally sensitive location. The next 20 years were spent in Aberdeen, UK, working on maturing, developing and implementing projects and modifications to increase oil production from North Sea platforms.

Kathy Bayman

Kathy Bayman talking at lecturn

MEng Chemical Engineering, 2014

After graduating, Kathy joined the BP Process Safety graduate scheme in Aberdeen. This took her through a number of different roles, from a support role in Aberdeen HQ, to a year on rotation on ETAP platform, to the turnaround team at Kinneil in Grangemouth. She also developed a love of working with schools to promote STEM subjects, organising many graduate-led events in schools or supporting visiting students in office.

Olivia Sweeny

Olivia Sweeney, graduation profile image in front of McEwans Hall

Masters degree, Chemical Engineering 2017

Olivia has very recently graduated from the School of Engineering, and has since begun working for Lush as a Creative Buyer for Aroma Chemicals.

She uses her chemical engineering knowledge to establish whether there is a better and safer synthetic which can be used by Lush, if there is a natural product which would be more effective, if the company can create products from its waste stream or work with a company to scale up a new sustainable supply chain.

Mechanical Engineering

Andrew Stevenson

Andrew Stevenson

Masters in Mechanical Engineering, 2003

Upon leaving Edinburgh, Andrew worked as a graduate design engineer for BAE Systems designing composite panels for military aircraft on the F35 Joint Strike Fighter project. After several years he moved to a small company working in the offshore sector which designed and built customised equipment. Andrew joined as a design engineer, then led several projects before setting up a consultancy department prior to becoming a Director.

Caroline Vorpenes

Caroline Vorpenes profile image

Mechanical Engineering with Renewable Engineering MEng (Hons), 2015

Since graduating from the University of Edinburgh, Caroline has been working at Jaguar Land Rover, first as a graduate engineer, and now as a project engineer for Cockpit Systems in Body Engineering. Her two years in the JLR graduate scheme involved everything from physically fitting parts to cars on the assembly line, to helping put together high level strategy documents.

Clare Lavelle

Clare Lavelle

Mechanical Engineering with Management BEng (Hons) 2003

After graduating, Clare started her career in ScottishPower’s transmission and distribution business as a graduate trainee and continued as the technical lead for ScottishPower’s newly formed marine renewables team. This included development of the world’s first commercial wave farm project at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, in addition to investment in the Hammerfest Strom tidal technology. She has also worked for Pelamis Wave Power and was the Consenting Manager for a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project, the 1.5 GW Moray Offshore Renewable Wind Farm.

Jack Otter

Jack Otter

Masters in Mechanical Engineering, 2011

Since leaving university Jack gained a place on the Denis Ferranti graduate scheme where he was mentored by one of the company directors to develop as a professional engineer in the defence industry. Through commitment to the business and the developing marine pyrotechnic range the Institute of Mechanical Engineers recognised the level of professionalism with Chartered and Fellow status.

Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Bruce Rae

Bruce Rae

Electronics and Electrical Engineering MEng 2005, PhD Electronics Department 2009

Following his PhD Bruce spent a year as a post-doctoral researcher before moving to the Imaging Division of STMicroelectronics in Edinburgh as a senior analogue designer. Since then, he has progressed through the roles of technical manager and photonics pixel and silicon architecture team manager and is currently a photonics pixel architect.

Cameron Paterson

Cameron Paterson

Electrical and Electronic Engineering BSc (Hons) 1984

Cameron moved South after graduation in 1984, and is now in his 34th year in the Motor Industry.  Joining Ford as a graduate trainee at their Dunton Engineering Centre in Essex, he spent the first 17 years alternating between various engineering and project management roles, including foreign service assignments in Belgium and the USA.  His last role at Ford was as Head of the Electrical Engineering department in the UK — back where he had started as a graduate.

Jane Jackson

Jane Jackson

MEng in Electronics, 1992. PhD in Electronics, 1997

Since graduating Jane has worked as a mixed signal IC designer for Motorola, Seagate, Wolfson, and currently Analog Devices, where she has been for 17 years. Jane has gained experience in various fields, including converters, supply monitoring and sequencing, hotswap control and more recently switching power supplies.

Seyed Danesh

Seyed Danesh

Electronics and Computer Science MEng 2006, PhD from the School of Engineering 2011

After graduating from the University of Edinburgh , Seyed joined Gigle Networks, a fabless semiconductor startup company in the space of Power-Line-Communication (PLC). He joined the company at the early pre-funding stage, and helped grow the company through multiple rounds of funding to over 70 engineers and a successful exit to Broadcom.  He worked on Analog Circuit Design and System Architecture during his time at Gigle Networks and then Broadcom in developing multiple PLC System-on-Chips.

Udita Banerjee

Udita Banerjee profile image

MSc Electronics, 2013

Since graduating from the University of Edinburgh, Udita has completed the RBS Technology Graduate Scheme. As part of this, she got the opportunity to work in the Mainframe division and the Innovation department. Upon successful completion, Udita joined the bank’s Innovation department where her role is primarily to run events and projects that drive RBS’s innovation agenda.

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