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Dr Maria-Chiara Ferrari has been shortlisted for the Women of the Future ("WOF") Awards, the movement recognising and nurturing young female talent in the UK, announced on Monday. The Awards, now in its 10th year and supported by headline sponsor Aviva, are open to women aged 35 or under and celebrate rising talent across business, culture, media and more.
Maria-Chiara Ferrari, from the School of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh is a Lecturer in Membranes for Carbon Capture. Since 2011 she has established the research and the experimental facilities for membranes for gas separation in the Institute of Materials and Processes. In the last 5 years, she has supervised several projects on membranes including research on post-combustion carbon capture from coal fired power plants (sponsored by ScottishPower) and fluoride and hormones removal from water. She has also established international collaborations including a knowledge exchange project with Romania and Greece (EU CleanCoalTech) and a PhD students research trip to Australia.
Professor Alan Murray, who nominated Chiara, said:
"Chiara's primary research interest is carbon capture – a vital technology to tackle one of the main causes of climate change by removing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power stations and industrial sources. At a time when female engineers are in short supply, Chiara's teaching and research activities in such an obviously societally-important and challenging field are crucial to her School, her University and her profession. She is an outstanding role model for potential new students in Engineering."
Spread across 11 categories, such as Real Estate, Technology and Digital, Business, Entrepreneur and Sport, 61 women have been selected for this year's awards, to be announced on 27th October at the London Hilton, Park Lane. In addition, this year includes three additional awards recognising Mentor of the Year, Young Star and Corporate Award.
Pinky Lilani, CBE DL, Founder, Women of the Future:
"Every year we unearth and recognise the most incredible young women. This year we had a record number of nominations, which made it incredibly hard to choose as they were all so impressive! We are delighted with the shortlist identified and wish all of our chosen ladies a big congratulations for being identified as a woman of the future."
All women shortlisted for a WOF Award are invited to join the WOF Ambassadors Programme, connecting award winning women with sixth formers, and the WOF Network, which is set up for members to connect and build business relationships.
Aviva Group CEO, Mark Wilson, said:
"Diversity is a business imperative. It just makes business sense. So Aviva is proud to support the Women of the Future awards, which celebrate inspirational women who are role models and future business leaders. We need diversity at all corporate levels to help businesses deliver for customers, shareholders and society as a whole, and these awards contribute to this important objective."
Previous winners of the WOF Awards include:
- Dawn O'Porter, Writer & Television presenter
- Emma Barnett, Women's Editor at The Daily Telegraph
- Holly Tucker, Co-founder notonthehighstreet.com
- Liv Garfield, Chief Executive of Severn Trent.
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