When I was younger, I always had a creative side. I love to make comic books, I love to make board games, but what drew me to engineering is an obsession with analytical thinking and problem solving. When it came to picking my A levels, I was a bit confused how you meant to choose just four subjects? I realised even the most technical aspects of engineering has creativity within it, like finding clever ways to control airflow or clever ways of making a test method more repeatable. So I didn't have to give up anything.
Another thing that I'm really passionate about is improving equality, diversity and inclusion. According to the Royal Academy of Engineering, only 6% of engineers in industry are from ethnic minority backgrounds, and this really needs to be increased. I'm glad that Dyson able to support this. I've had the opportunity to set up a global ethnic minority network – I've run inclusive design workshops, and at university I set up a module about equality, diversity and inclusion in engineering. I carry this passion with me into my work.
I work in the haircare team at Dyson, which is all about making products which improve people's lives. This also means ensuring that they work for all types of different uses from different backgrounds and different hair types. Not only that, but I also led an inclusive design workshop focused on improving products for disabled users. The challenge is ensuring our products make people's lives easier whilst also working for absolutely everyone – I love it!