#20 - Empowering Women in Engineering with Dr Evi Viza

The Social Impact Journal

According to a Harvard Business Review, women in the US only make up 20% of engineering graduates, and it's been estimated that nearly 40% of women who earn engineering degrees either leave or never enter the profession. Also, in the UK, just over 16% of employees in the sector are women.
In Episode 20, Jack meets with Dr Evi Viza, a Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineer with specialisation on Quality Management and Continuous Improvement. She is a Chartered Quality Professional and a Black Belt Lean Six Sigma practitioner. She is member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).

Dr Viza’s research is centred on applying operations management, quality improvement and lean principles to solve industry problems as well as how they apply to the work of craft groups and in the cottage industry particularly in low resource economies. She has been involved and interdisciplinary research projects with focus on systems approach and sustainability, and gender diversity within STEM across different settings.
She has been awarded and participated a number of grants to address gender diversity within Engineering and support economic development for women in the Global South. Examples are:” FemaleINSPIRES” and as UK partner in 2 Africa Catalyst projects funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, “Changing the landscape within Engineering and Physical Sciences (Equality and Inclusion in industry, academia and research)” funded by the Scottish Funding Council; “Building Manufacturing capacity for Kenyan Craft Women” by Global Challenges Research Fund.

She has been recently selected as one of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Women in Engineering Ambassadors (WES)

Dr Viza is working currently as the Program Leader on the MSc Quality Management in the University of the West of Scotland.

If you would like to connect with Dr Evi Viza, head to the following social media channels:
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/evi-viza-79b10472/
Twitter - @evi1603
Academic Profile: https://research-portal.uws.ac.uk/en/persons/evdoxia-viza
You can follow the podcast on:
Instagram: @thesocialimpactjournal
Linkedin: The Social Impact Journal
Twitter: @sijpodcast
Tiktok: @thesocialimpactjournal