Michael Alexander speaks to German-born Perthshire-based engineer Tanja Waaser about her appointment as a visiting professor at Abertay University in Dundee.
During the 17 years that German civil engineer Tanja Waaser has worked in the Scottish engineering and structure industry, she has worked on a number of high-level projects in the country of courier, doubling the A9, Almondbank’s flood defense program and repairing the collapsed flood road devastated dura Den in Fife.
Responsibilities maintained through the partner geotechnical engineer, working with Perth-based WSP, have included managing more than 20 employees, delivering design packages for external and internal customers, and technical excellence.
However, the 47-year-old man, who was awarded the club qualified as a member of the Civil Engineers Institution in 2010, says that being a woman, not to mention a foreigner, in a male-dominated sector has not been easy.
Describing this as a “hard environment” where women in high-level positions want “strong elbows and thick skin,” she feels lucky to paint on a varied team where women are well represented, not through design, because they are the “best candidates.” “
The preference to motivate more female engineers is one of Tanja’s ambitions as she prepares to take on the prestigious role of visiting professor of civil engineering at Abertay University in Dundee.
The University of Mainz, Germany, a civil engineering graduate who moved to Tayside after graduating with an MRes in geotechnical engineering from the University of Dundee in 2002, invited to apply for the position through a former colleague-turned-professor at Abertay, Andrew Minto.
The “industry-university” initiative aims to harness the joy of visiting professors for student learning, as well as the employability and skills of UK engineering graduates.
“I’m going to have a day at college to give a lecture or paintings with the university about their new master’s degree in civil engineering,” he explains.
“Fundamentally, I’m going to expand a painting organization to simulate a real-life situation where you have a consumer and need to build anything, making scholars perceive that they will have to paint with other disciplines.”
“It divides academics into other teams: some look at drainage, some to structures, some to soil research or geotechnical, and some are allocation control, and they want to expand a solution and proposal through joint execution, contributing to their mastery of experience and communication with all other disciplines.
“Basically, it’s like a genuine exercise. I hope that you will then see the importance of not only focusing on the special domain that interests you, but also of perceiving the parameters of other disciplines.”
Tanja says Abertay hoped that by leveraging their true industry experience, they could tailor their mastery to make it applicable in the genuine world.
They also hope to be informed of their former interest in civil engineering dating back to childhood.
Growing up in Meerbusch, in West Germany’s Lower Rhine region, Tanja was only 4 years old when her father, head of structure at Dusseldorf airport, took her mid-afternoon to oversee the lining of the runway.
His uncle, head of the local council’s structural branch, guilty of the primary tunnel and bridge projects in Dusseldorf, and also led him to see the fruitful projects.
“I think I grew up in places of structure,” he smiles.
“Since I don’t forget well, every time a great structure happened, I was in structure sites and on big machines.
“The boys who worked there think it’s wonderful to have a little woman running on a big device; you couldn’t do those days with good physical shape and security, etc.
“But for me, it’s great. I don’t know anything else. It’s transparent that I’m going in!
Tanja’s European education has given him an attitude in foreign affairs and it is no wonder that he has a voluntary interest in Scottish, British and European politics.
As the daughter of communist parents and grandparents, Tanja, who now lives in Meigle, had a “different perspective” of the East and a “somewhat complicated relationship” with the West at the height of the Cold War.
When the Berlin Wall fell while at a school in London, he recalls that it was a “great surprise, so unforeseen and completely surreal” to watch the advances broadcast on television.
However, despite the demanding situations of life, harsh paintings and absolute determination have led her to where she is today, and she is willing to motivate more women and women to pursue careers in civil engineering.
“Many of our female engineers are concerned about STEM activities,” she adds.
“We go to schools and inspire women to move on to science, to engineering, to communicate to them what painting is like, what we do and what it is like.
“We do a lot of STEM activities. I think the more they are in the main leadership positions and roles, the more encouraging, I hope, is for women to participate.”
Regardless of gender, the greatest satisfaction comes from making a genuine difference through the engineering projects themselves.
“The A9 duell is probably the maximum and satisfying thing that has worried me,” she says.
“This is one of the main infrastructure projects that Scotland and will open the whole territory to the economy and life.
“I’ve traveled a lot in the north of Scotland and it can be very complicated and very long to drive on a single road for that distance.”
“Reducing time for Inverness will open up great economic opportunities.”
Andrew Minto, senior lecturer in Civil Engineering at Abertay University’s Faculty of Applied Sciences, said: “I think Tanja revels in the industry and her enthusiasm for helping academics and engineers in her team will be invaluable to academics.
“At Abertay, we are in fact proud of our ability to prepare academics for the industry.
“With the recent transfer of a BSc (Hons) to a BEng/MEng, the course has been replaced a little, and at all times we need to make sure that our academics are as ready as possible for paintings in the industry once they are gone. Us.
“We are already offering a guaranteed 12-week internship in the third year, giving our students a true and authentic life experience, and what Tanja’s appointment will allow us to do is make sure that our fourth and fifth year assignment modules are as tied to a genuine design situation as possible. We can leverage Tanja’s experience and experience to design these modules”.
Andrew added: “Having first worked with Tanja when I was a graduate engineer seven years ago, I know firsthand how much price it will bring to the course.
“Tanja is really my civil engineer-approved mentoring establishment, which is helping me achieve my professional qualifications. Her enthusiasm and help for the engineers working on her team has been nothing and I have no doubt that she will make the same efforts to help our scholars as much as they can.
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