TEDI-London Walks the Talk on Bridging the Engineering Gender Gap with All-Female Senior Leadership Team

@TEDILondon – TEDI-London Walks the Talk on Bridging the Engineering Gender Gap with All-Female Senior Leadership Team

As it welcomes another member: Professor Julie Bregulla, Director of Innovation

23rd June 2022, London – The latest senior appointment at The Engineering & Design Institute London (TEDI-London), completes an all-female senior leadership team – a unique achievement for a Higher Education Institution in the UK. Professor Julie Bregulla joins the team as Director of Innovation (Projects and Partnerships), bringing extensive engineering leadership experience from previous roles at Building Research Establishment (BRE) and Structural Safety Ltd. 

The appointment bolsters TEDI-London’s already-thriving, all-female Senior Leadership Team; a rare find within a historically male-dominated industry – both true of engineering and higher education.  

TEDI-London itself stems from the vision of its three founding partners – Arizona State University (ASU), King’s College London and UNSW Sydney –: to bring a new generation of more diverse problem-solvers into engineering. An all-female Senior Leadership Team exemplifies TEDI-London’s dedication to this vision. By drawing upon the team’s own collective experiences to change the narrative on what engineers can do, as well as inspiring other women to consider a career in the industry, TEDI-London welcomed a 50% female first student cohort in September 2021. Since its inception in 2019, it has also been granted degree-awarding powers, earned its ‘institute’ status and received significant capital funding from the Office for Students (OfS). 

Commenting on her appointment, Professor Bregulla said: “I am delighted to be stepping into the role of Director of Innovation (Projects & Partnerships) at TEDI-London. My time here has already proven to be an exciting journey, during which our mission to attract more diverse people into engineering came to life with the onboarding of our first student cohort last year.” 

Professor Bregulla joins TEDI-London’s all-female senior leadership team comprising: 

– CEO Professor Judy Raper, a distinguished chemical engineer and recipient of the Australia Medal for services to education. 

– Academic Director Professor Kay Bond, a Chartered mechanical engineer, formerly of the University of Nottingham where she had responsibility for engineering curriculum development and teaching quality assurance and enhancement. 

– Director of Finance and Resources Kerry Jenkins, a Chartered Accountant with a significant amount of experience in public sector finance, who led the successful bid for capital investment funds from the OfS. 

– Registrar Carmai Pestell, who led the successful applications to register TEDI-London as a degree awarding, OfS registered Higher Education Institution.  

– Director of Marketing, Recruitment and Admissions Helen Merrills, who joined TEDI-London as a consultant before stepping into a full-time role to lead the establishment of the innovative new brand for the sector. 

“We are thrilled to give Professor Bregulla the recognition she deserves, after she has already helped us to achieve so much as a specialist higher education start-up,” says Professor Judy Raper, Dean & CEO at TEDI-London. “Our all-female Senior Leadership Team is also hugely significant. Opportunities for women entering the industry were lacking when I was setting out in my own career, so having such a strong team of women paving the way for the engineers of the future shows how far we’ve come already and we’re looking forward to our continued work on diversifying the industry.”  

Concludes Emma Cariaga, Joint Head of Canada Water Development at British Land and Board member for TEDI-London: “TEDI-London’s Senior Leadership Team is an inspiration to its female students, and it is fantastic to see it move from strength to strength. As we celebrate International Women in Engineering Day, I am very proud to be a Board member for an institution that is taking the engineering gender gap seriously and working hard to make a positive difference.”