Welcoming in the new breed

Science, work and business

The insiderEngineering

Welcoming in the new breed HARD physical graft set against a backdrop of the decline in manufacturing industry. That’s one stereotypical image of engineering, but of all the myths surrounding the profession, its blue-collar image is the easiest to dispel. Only English speakers tend to associate it with oil, grime and engines – the word “engineer” actually derives from the Latin word ingeniare, which means to create or devise. This is a far more apt description of the modern professional engineer. The new breed of engineer is at the cutting edge of discovery, from nanotechnology to carbon-free energy. Though some engineers may well work on heavy machinery, their role is to devise future technologies, from cars that spare pedestrians’ lives in an accident to trains powered by hydrogen. New Scientist chose four examples of this new breed to demonstrate the best an engineering career can offer.

Tim Lucas Senior mechanical engineer at the Adidas Innovation Team

AS GERMANY and Costa Rica lined up in the opening game of the 2006 World Cup, one group of engineers was watching with nervous anticipation. After more than five years of engineering research and development, their creation was about to be put to the test. Not a new stadium, TV camera or even the medics’ stretcher – it was the ball. Ask the average person in the street what mechanical engineers do, and you’re likely to get a picture of a man with a spanner and dirt under his fingernails. For Tim Lucas, mechanical engineering has taken him about 50 | NewScientist | 3 February 2007

as far away from greasy overalls as it is possible to get. He inhabits a world where millions of people watch their sporting heroes compete using his handiwork. Based just outside Nuremberg in Germany, Lucas has worked on projects ranging from ball design to sports clothing and high-performance footwear. While sports equipment may often seem to be more about flashy marketing than science, sports engineering is serious stuff. For instance, the right equipment can prevent careerthreatening injuries. The research behind the World Cup ball was designed to improving the quality of the game – to produce a ball that behaves consistently wherever it is struck. This involved testing various materials and designs using computer simulations and a wind tunnel, modelling the ball’s behaviour when kicked at up to 160 kilometres an hour. Soon after the 2006 tournament drew to a close, Lucas was hard at work on designs for a ball that meets the tournament requirements for South Africa’s 2010 World Cup, and has just finished another for the European Championship in 2008. Originally trained in food technology, Lucas moved to sports engineering for his doctorate, studying computer models of the golf stroke. He then joined Adidas as the only engineer in the company’s research wing, introducing advanced computer-based modelling to the group. During his seven years at the company, Lucas has also made breakthroughs in sports footwear, helping to design shoes such as the “ForMotion”. This shoe is designed to improve the body’s natural movement, and adjusts with motion to let each footfall adapt to its landing surface. Rather than absorbing shock

ILYA/NAYMUSHIN/REUTERS

Engineering has a new face. Julia Pierce talks to four young and successful engineers who embody the spirit of their discipline in the 21st century

on the vertical axis – up and down – a pair of sliding plates in the midsole also absorbs shock and controls motion backward, forward and side-to-side, reducing stress on the knee and lower leg. “It contains a spherical bearing, which I first saw used in the earthquake protection system of a US building,” he says. Lucas has built up a team of nine engineers in the company’s 60-strong Innovation Team, and is currently seeking two PhD students for a project to develop a computer model for prototype footwear. It will come as no surprise that jobs like Lucas’s are highly sought-after. “We do get a lot of letters,” he admits. www.newscientistjobs.com

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The engineer of the 21st century can be found working in everything from sports to space research

existing and new urban developments. It also looked at ways to recycle water and cut down energy wastage within cities, such as heating homes with the warmth from waste water. Leach’s interest in sustainable technologies began during a trip to Africa during his degree course, where he took part in a project to design low-cost, low-energy cooking appliances for the urban poor in Zimbabwe and later Zambia. “It was great to use my engineering design knowledge to make something for people with a totally different experience to us,” he explains. “It was the green angle that particularly appealed.” His work won him a prize from what is now the UK Association of Professional Engineers. This success motivated him to continue an academic career, completing a master’s degree

“We need people with a

broad view to solve the world’s problems”

Matthew Leach Deputy director of Imperial College London’s Centre for Energy Policy and Technology

TURNING to renewable energy will be a lot more complex than simply building more wind farms and flicking the switch. One problem, for example, is that if there’s a shortage of wind, the grid will have to be able to quickly swap to another source. Matthew Leach of Imperial College London is one part of a UK research group working to solve niggles like this. The Sustainable Power www.newscientistjobs.com

Generation and Supply, or Supergen, consortium is a £40 million programme set up to address the technical and social barriers to low-carbon energy in the UK. “We are looking at what needs to be done to the electricity network to make it lowcarbon,” says Leach. “The electricity network of the future also needs to be flexible. We need to encourage using renewables while making sure people get the standard of service they expect.” Leach has also worked on a project with BP called Urban Energy Systems, examining how energy, people and materials flow through a city in order to improve the efficiency of both

in environmental research at Imperial, followed by a doctorate in energy policy. “My postgraduate work broadened my view from engineering to take in economics, law and the social and behavioural aspects of the energy market,” he says. “I find people with an engineering background are good at integrating broader knowledge with their scientific core. To solve its problems, the world needs people with a broad view.” Sixteen years on, Leach is running the energy policy course himself. Many of his students have gone on to staff the newly created renewable-energy arms of multinationals or set up their own firms. Two are involved in the company behind Solio, a solar powered charger for iPods and mobile phones. Engineers are much needed to develop greener technologies, he says. “The energy sector has a fantastic skills shortage at all levels, both now and looming over it for the next 10 years,” he says. “Not only are there some good career opportunities, but there’s a lot of money going into the research side, too. With the pressures of climate change and the energy gap, in the last few years funding from the research councils has probably doubled.” 3 February 2007 | NewScientist | 51

The insiderEngineering Stuart Moran

A rewarding career starts here The availability of jobs and the prospects for pay and career advancement are valid concerns for graduates thinking about a career in engineering. There is no denying that traditional British heavy manufacturing and sectors such as shipbuilding and steel have shrunk over the previous decades. However, the job losses have not been among qualified engineers. There is now a shortage of engineering graduates with knowledge of modern technology, business training and problemsolving abilities. A general decline in the number of students pursuing degrees in science and engineering has coincided with a surge in demand for such graduates. For example, while European

chemical companies have cut jobs to keep their heads above water because of the high cost of raw materials, the pharmaceutical sector is ramping up recruitment, particularly for chemical and process engineers. Firms such as AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline need chemical engineers early in drug development to ensure that drug candidates have the necessary basic properties before they enter clinical trials. For example, a drug needs to be released from the bloodstream in a uniform way, and this is a property that is hard to alter. If potential problems like this are not weeded out early, it can prove very expensive for a drug company at a later stage. Yet according to a report by

recruitment company Blue Pelican Group last year, 79 per cent of pharmaceutical industry recruitment consultants say there is a shortage of experienced staff. “In the last six months of 2006 the market has been very good for permanent vacancies across the engineering sector,” says Carl Robinson of engineering recruitment consultancy Redwood. This demand for skilled workers is set to continue into 2007. Chemical processing engineers have been in particular demand, says Robinson, with electronic engineers not far behind. “Candidates are really dictating the rates,” he says. “There are fights over staff and that is pushing up pay. The oil and gas industry pays premium rates, followed by pharmaceuticals.”

Engineering in the 21st century The new breed of engineer can be found across many sectors. Take a look at the UK’s aerospace industry. Within the past decade it has undergone a transformation. In the early 1990s, government cutbacks and a recession in the commercial aviation industry forced many aerospace corporations to reduce their workforce. A decade on, the popularity of long-haul holidays and the growth of low-cost airlines require new aircraft that are safe, economical and environmentally friendly – such as the world’s biggest passenger plane, the Airbus A380. Meanwhile, the drive to develop faster military aircraft and cuttingedge technology such as pilotless fighter jets means that engineering research and design remain at the forefront of the defence sector. And military technology is about more than just aircraft – engineers are needed to equip the 21st-century soldier with kit such as robotic mine-clearance equipment, or ultra-

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lightweight body armour that can be worn more comfortably in searing heat. The space sector is also going from strength to strength. According to Astrium, part of European aerospace group EADS, the world’s space business is expected to grow by at least 15 per cent per annum to be worth $1.5 trillion by 2020. Back on Earth, we need faster, greener ways to get around, and that takes engineers. A good example is the automotive sector, where pressure to cut carbon emissions means companies are racing to develop cleaner vehicles, designing the next generation of petrol-electric hybrid cars such as the Toyota Prius. And regardless of how well-established renewable technologies become, engineers will be needed for a new wave of nuclear power technology. Last year, the UK government’s Energy Review handed the nuclear industry a new lease of life by backing the idea of a new generation of power stations.

Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry bucked predictions that the North Sea’s fields are entering their twilight years as reserves begin to run dry. A 2006 investment boom fuelled by higher oil prices and the success of new technology such as carbon sequestration – injecting captured carbon dioxide into wells to force out formerly unrecoverable oil. Last year exploration of previously inaccessible fields created around 15,000 jobs, according to the UK Offshore Operators Association. Finally, modern society’s insatiable demand for consumer electronics has led to demand for increasingly fast and light versions of devices such as mobile phones, personal organisers and music players. The phenomenal success of Apple’s iPod has shown there is still scope for a truly original product to create a multimillion-pound worldwide market from scratch. All that is needed is someone with the right skills and ideas.

Technical director, Surgical Innovations Group

LIKE many successful entrepreneurs, Stuart Moran started out with nothing but a great idea. Around 16 years ago, Moran’s father, a retired designer of surgical instruments, was busy spending his spare time inventing a new surgical device for use in keyhole surgery, a field then in its infancy. Like beads on a thread, the instrument was designed to be flexible while its internal cable was slack, allowing it to be fed into the body through a small opening. Once inside, tensioning the cable would stiffen the device, forming a predetermined shape for manipulating organs or tissue. Armed with a prototype, he turned to his son for help. “My degree in mechanical engineering had been design heavy, so I knew all about the materials side,” says Moran junior. He also had a fair amount of business know-how. “At the time I was studying for an MBA while working, but the surgical device bug took over.” Soon, the device – known as Endoflex – was ready for production. Securing a big order from the US, Moran left his job at BP to set up a company called Surgical Innovations. Since then he has developed products that combine disposable and non-disposable elements, such as coagulator scissors – shears that seal blood vessels as they cut through tissue – with a reusable handle and single-use blades. “Designing equipment with a reusable part keeps the cost down,” explains Moran. “That’s ideal for an organisation like the NHS.” The SI Group is now the European Union’s biggest manufacturer of single-use scissors. Moran has also designed products to allow patients to store their own blood for transfusion during procedures, to avoid the risk of infection using donor blood. In 2004 Moran won a prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering silver medal for his work, while in 2005 his company increased its profits by two-thirds, with a turnover of more than £4 million. He is now looking to transfer SI Group technology into other markets. Rolls-Royce is already using Endoflex to examine the inside of jet engines without removing them from the wing. There’s a raft of opportunities for engineers in the medical device and www.newscientistjobs.com

pharmaceutical sectors, says Moran, developing everything from implants that can deliver drugs to a specific part of the body, to home kits for measuring fertility. “Engineering covers so many disciplines – that’s the exciting thing about it,” he says.

“Engineering covers so many disciplines – that’s the exciting thing about it”

Lynne Moore IF THERE is such a thing as a Renaissance engineer, then Lynne Moore would be it. “When I said I was thinking of going into engineering, I remember being told by a friend of the family that it was one of the most diverse careers you can have,” she says. With experience spanning academia, the media and a business start-up, she has certainly proved this to be true. Moore has spent her career applying artificial intelligence to engineering, predominantly in the field of building design, and has published more than 50 papers and a book on the subject. Working with psychologists, she has looked at how engineers tackle design problems. For example, she says that when designing a building, engineers need to take into account how it will be used by its first tenants, and how it may be used by someone completely different in the future. Take the 2012 Olympics buildings, for instance. The designers will have to meet the demands of the various sporting activities, but also ensure the buildings don’t end up as white elephants once the games end. Designers have no crystal ball to consult, so they usually turn to past experience to inform their decisions. Moore and her colleagues took this approach to the next step and created a computer program that uses artificial intelligence to seek out information from thousands of sources, including building plans, journals or reports about the decisions made during previous building designs. The artificial intelligence does the searching for the most relevant information, rather than simply reporting back on basic keywords. “This will allow [designers] to be able to make better choices about designs, by making the data required easier to access,” says Moore. Following a degree in civil and construction engineering at Cardiff University, Moore moved into industry before pursuing a doctorate on artificial intelligence www.newscientistjobs.com

DAUEX LES JACOBS/GETTY

Senior lecturer in civil engineering at Cardiff University

Engineers will be crucial in the shift to alternative forms of energy generation, such as wind power

in civil engineering. It was an exciting area to be in at this time. “In the early 90s, artificial intelligence was very new,” she says. Later, while working at a science festival she was introduced to a TV producer and selected to front HTV’s What on Earth?, a science and engineering programme aimed at teenagers. Her promotion of science on TV and later radio has been recognised by a media fellowship award from the British Association for the Advancement of Science. She has also tried her hand in business. Her

IT company, Learning Industries, develops online educational materials and was listed as one of Wales’s “Hot 100” start-ups for 2006. Clients have included various councils and NHS trusts, as well as the Australian National Prescribing Service. As with the other engineers New Scientist spoke to, Moore’s wide variety of experience demonstrates how diverse a career in engineering can be. From reducing humanity’s carbon footprint to improving its health or entertaining and informing the masses, engineering has a new face. ● Julia Pierce is a freelance writer based in London 3 February 2007 | NewScientist | 53