The Women's Engineering Society has announced the winner of the Karen Burt Award 2017 as Madeleine Jones CEng of Sellafield Ltd, nominated by the Institution of Chemical Engineers.

This prestigious annual award for a newly chartered woman engineer, now in its 19th year, highlights the importance of Chartered status and recognises the candidate's excellence and potential in the practice of engineering, as well as offering recognition to the candidate’s contributions to the promotion of the engineering profession.

Madeleine Jones is currently Deputy Operations Manager, Legacy Ponds & Silos for Sellafield Ltd. Madelaine said: “I am delighted to receive the Karen Burt Award and hope that I can continue working with WES and IChemE to support and inspire more women to choose interesting and fulfilling careers in engineering.”

The judges were particularly impressed by Madelaine’s work in implementing improvements to the Magnox facility at Sellafield and she has also been involved in a BBC documentary about Sellafield to help promote engineering and the nuclear industry. Sally Sudworth, Chair of the Judges, Karen Burt Award 2017, said: “Her passion for her work came across very clearly. Her role as a student ambassador in promoting engineering to school children is impressive, as is her mentoring of engineering graduates at Sellafield. The panel was also impressed with Madeleine’s active role on the industry advisory board for the engineering and applied science department at Aston University.”

The Women’s Engineering Society (WES) supports women to reach their potential in engineering and succeed at all stages of their careers. Kirsten Bodley, CEO of WES offered her congratulations to Madelaine and said “her contributions to the profession are outstanding”.

A member of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), Madeleine has also done outstanding work with the IChemE North West Member group and been a Student Representative on the Midlands Member Group Committee. She talks more about her career so far and route into engineering in her guest blog for IChemE, in which she says “Chartership demonstrates that you are a competent engineer in the real world and can apply all the stuff you learnt at university to deliver solutions to actual problems”.

You will find more inspiring women engineers, including two Engineering Council Board members, on our Women in Engineering page.