A first for the ITA-AITES 2023 World Tunnel Congress in Athens is the organization of a special session on the topic of "Women in Tunneling". In a space that soon filled with delegates, this special session took place with the purpose of recognizing the crucial presence of women engineers and academics in tunneling and underground development works and to highlight the need for equal opportunities and pay between the two genders.

Paraskevi Youta-Mitra, PhD, EDIP NTUA and former Vice President of EESYE, initiated the session and introduced the topic with a historical overview of the progress of women's achievements in the professional field of engineering and, more generally, in the positive sciences in Greece. She informed us that the first women engineers in Greece appeared in the 1920s, in the following order: the first engineer was an architect (1926), followed by the first civil engineer in 1932 and the first mining engineer in 1937. Other specialties followed later, with naval architecture being the last, where the first graduate was reported in 1971! After that year, the participation rates of women in the engineering profession increased and stabilized at around 38% in 2008. In education, women pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields exceed 50% of the total student population.

Next, Chrysothemi Paraskevopoulou, PhD, Prof. at the University of Leeds and General Secretary of EESYE, invited distinguished members of the tunneling and underground works community to the podium. They shared their personal experiences, how they faced the challenges of the profession, and gave characteristic examples where collaboration between men and women in large projects was excellent and yielded outstanding results for the project itself.

Sanja Zlatanic, Senior Vice President & Chair, HNTB & ITA Ex-Co, spoke about her particularly difficult initial steps in tunneling and emphasized trust among colleagues.

Jinxiu (Jenny) Yan, ITA-AITES Past President, spoke about other distinguished women underground engineers in China and stressed the importance of diversity within the team itself for optimizing results.

Arnold Dix, President of ITA, recounted in his unique way powerful stories of women engineers in difficult working and social conditions.

Helen Reeves, Head of Discipline for Geoscience & Engineering Geology TGE (Europe) & Director, UK & IAEG (VP Europe), Jacobs, provided an extensive overview of the difficulties a female geotechnical engineer faces in her career and applauded her current employer for the special work program concerning the transitional period for women engineers becoming mothers.

 

Eirini Psychari, Senior Mine Geotechnical & Backfill Engineer, Hellas Gold S.A., spoke about the particular conditions a female engineer faces in an underground mining project where the vast majority of employees are men, the need to prove her worth doubly when she is also a young engineer, and the support of her current employer for its women engineers in highlighting their abilities and the need for all mining companies to be more open to hiring women and ensuring a balance between family and work for all employees.

Mark Diederichs, Prof. Queen's University, Canada / TAC EDI Committee representative, presented the excellent actions of the Tunneling Association of Canada (TAC) regarding the attraction of women and, more generally, groups of people with low professional participation in the field of underground construction. He presented a series of data on the professional trajectory of both young people and women in tunneling in Canada, while emphasizing the sometimes unconscious biases that ultimately harm the professional field as a whole.

Artemis Plemnenou, Civil Engineer and Safety Coordinator, AVAX, Attiko Metro, quoted Michelle Obama's phrase, "there is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish…" and emphasized that working as a female engineer in underground construction is a fascinating adventure with great excitement and opportunities for development. Gender should not matter, as everyone on the construction site is an engineer with unique personalities. She mentioned the support of her current employer and concluded that it is important to attract women to the sector.

Theodora Vovou, Senior Tunnel Engineer, Hatch, USA, spoke about the difficult achievement of balance between work and motherhood, especially when the workplace is male-dominated and hostile. She also presented statistics on the female presence in the field of tunneling in the USA, where the overall participation rate is 26%, while for her current employer it is 32%.

Elena Marnika, Mining Rights & Permitting Engineer, IMERYS BAUXITES S.A., focused on the position of women in achieving leadership roles and mentioned her current company's goals to increase the participation of women in Senior Manager/Manager/Expert roles by 30%. Fundamental strategies for achieving such goals include broadening recruitment criteria and establishing incentives to attract a wider professional pool.

A lively round table discussion followed the guests' speeches. The vast majority of delegates had very specific proposals, opinions, examples, and enthusiasm for holding such a session. Indicative participants in the discussion included Marilia Balasi, Civil Engineer, Tunnel Design Project Manager at Omikron Kappa Consulting S.A., Evangelia Pelli, Director of the Earthquake Planning & Protection Organisation, Nasri Munfah P.E., Partner, Principal, Gall Zeidler Consultants, LLC, USA, Evangelia Gavrielatou, Civil Engineer, ATTIKO METRO, Eleni Zygouri, Civil Engineer, D. Bairaktaris & Ass/tes Structural Design Office Ltd., Antonia Cornaro, Expert Underground Space at Amberg Engineering, Co-chair ITACUS, Lecturer at ETH Zürich, Lucy Rew, Project director, tunnelling MEng, CEng, FICE, Anna Najder Olliver, Senior Design Manager Doha, Helen Baxter-Crawford, Technical Principal Engineering Geologist MAusIMM CP, Nikolaos Marsellos, retired Civil Engineer, Kristina Smith, Tunnelling Journal, Elena Gugiatti, Project Manager Digitalnology, Nicholas Vlachopoulos, Professor of Civil Engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada.

 

The session was closed by Chrysothemis Paraskevopoulou with a double online voting session that highlighted firstly the "existence of significant rates of discrimination in work environments" and secondly that "the WTC2023 conference was being women-friendly".

The session was enthusiastically featured in various magazines in the tunneling and underground works sector, such as the Tunnelling Journal, July 2023 issue, tunneling companies such as EFNARC, as well as on professional networks like LinkedIn.

Finally it should be noted that GTS is a member of the ITA International Sustainability & Diversity Working Group, and anyone (regardless of gender) who wishes to actively participate in similar events is invited to express their interest in the form below: https://forms.gle/97wxyZKmigyhFRCm6​

Women in Tunnelling - Photos (the full photogallery can be found here)