I Learned Early That I Would Stand Out, So I Chose to Stand Strong: Navigating the PhD Journey as a Woman in Engineering
There is a moment early in many engineering PhDs when you realise you are different. Sometimes it happens in a seminar room, sometimes in a lab, sometimes in a meeting where you look around the table and notice that you are the only woman there. I remember that moment clearly. And I remember the decision that followed: I could shrink to fit the space, or I could grow into it. I chose the second.
Being a woman in engineering did not make my PhD harder in the ways I was warned about. Instead, it made it sharper. It made me more observant, more curious, and more determined to ask questions that mattered, especially the ones that were not being asked at all.
Turning Difference into Direction
During my doctoral research in the automotive and emerging mobility sector, I began to notice something striking. Engineering conversations were technically impressive, but often emotionally empty. Performance metrics were optimised. Systems were automated. Yet the human experience, fear, comfort, trust, and dignity was frequently absent.
So, I brought it in.
I introduced what some initially called a “softer” lens to vehicle design and talked about how it feels to enter a vehicle, and not just how efficiently it operates. I asked how users trust systems they cannot see, how anxiety shapes travel behaviour, and how design choices can either empower or exclude. For much of my second year, this choice came at a cost. I had no publications to show, after repeated rejections from traditional automotive engineering journals where this work simply did not fit.
But by centring empathy alongside technical rigour, my research gained depth, relevance, and real-world impact. What once felt like a risk became my advantage. My first conference paper was deliberately highly technical, yet among more than 800 scientific submissions, it was the only one to explicitly foreground the challenges faced by people with disabilities, demonstrating that inclusion and engineering precision are not competing priorities, and are complementary ones.
Designing for Wellbeing, Not Just Movement
One of the most powerful shifts in my PhD was moving beyond mobility as movement, and towards mobility as wellbeing. Transport systems shape daily life, stress levels, independence, safety, and health, yet these impacts are often treated as secondary outcomes.
I deliberately focused on groups who are rarely the “default user”: disabled people, older adults, and pregnant women. Looking at mobility through the lens of pregnancy, for example, reframed everything, such as seating comfort, monitoring mechanisms, ease of boarding, thermal comfort, and perceived safety. They reveal how quickly engineering solutions fall short when the idea of a “typical user” goes unchallenged. Being a woman helped me see these gaps. Evidence helped me make them impossible to ignore.
By grounding lived experience in data, mixed methods, and policy insight, I was able to show that inclusive, wellbeing-centred design improves outcomes for everyone.
What Carried Me Through the PhD
There were days when confidence came easily, and days when it vanished completely. I learned that persistence comes from being supported in the right ways.
I hope you find supervisors as kind and encouraging as mine, because in that respect, I truly hit the jackpot. They were not women, but they never lacked empathy, trust, or belief in my voice. That support gave me the freedom to stop waiting until I felt “ready” before speaking.
Around me, I also built a circle of mentors, collaborators, and peers who valued impact as much as precision. Those relationships were a constant reminder that engineering does not exist in isolation from society, and neither do the people who practise it.
Most importantly, I allowed my values to lead my work. Inclusion, wellbeing, and public health became the backbone of my research identity. That alignment gave my PhD meaning, even during its most difficult moments.
Support for Women Walking This Path
If you are a woman pursuing a PhD in engineering, here is what I wish someone had told me earlier:
You do not need to become louder, colder, or less human to belong here.
Your empathy is not a weakness. Your lived experience is not a distraction.
The questions you ask, especially the uncomfortable ones, are your strength.
Seek mentors who listen. Build alliances that sustain you. Protect your curiosity. And when doubt creeps in, remember that struggling does not mean you are failing; it often means you are pushing boundaries that were never meant to stay still.
Becoming the Engineer the Discipline Needs
As we reflect on International Women’s Day, I do not think of my PhD as something I survived. I think of it as something I shaped. By using my position as a woman deliberately and confidently, I was able to influence how engineering problems were framed, whose needs were considered, and what success looked like.
Engineering does not need women to fit in quietly. Engineering needs women who are willing to feel deeply, think critically, and design boldly.
And if you are one of them, the discipline is already changing because you are here.
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