The Women in STEM Steering Group was convened in October 2020 to develop the recommendations outlined in the Matrix 2018 Women in STEM Report.
What the Steering Group does
The group reports annually to the Department for the Economy on how its recommendations are being delivered.
Appointed members represent the broad interests of their sector in Northern Ireland while having an overriding desire to address all the issues facing women in STEM and committed to the mission of the NI WISE Hub.
The Steering Group has undertaken a series of activities with DfE this year to ensure that NI economic policy reflects the needs of girls and women who want to work in STEM careers.
Steering Group members
DfE has appointed key stakeholders from industry, education and the public sector, who provide advice and support for the NI WISE Hub.
Co-Chairs
Dr Bryan Keating CBE
Dr Bryan Keating CBE
Bryan is the managing partner of the CIP partnership, the chair of Learning Pool, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster, a Director of Catalyst and Vice Chair of Diversity Mark NI, an organisation helping companies address Diversity and Inclusion issues. He is co-chair of the Women in STEM Steering Group along with Prof Eileen Harkin Jones. Bryan was chair of Matrix for many years and he continues to actively support the work of the Panel.
He also chairs SAF, the advisory panel supporting the DfE Apprenticeship and Youth Training development programmes.
Bryan has been a director of and an investor in a number of Northern Ireland technology businesses over the last four decades and has been a non-executive Director of a number of Public Sector and academic bodies including InvestNI (where he was the Vice Chair), QUBIS and EAG.
Bryan is a Fellow of the IOD and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2018, he was named NI IOD SME Non-Executive Director of the Year.
Prof. Eileen Harkin-Jones OBE
Eileen Harkin-Jones OBE FREng FIAE
Eileen Harkin-Jones is the Bombardier-Royal Academy of Engineering Professor of Composites Engineering at Ulster University since 2014. She obtained a first class honours degree in Mechanical Engineering from University College Dublin in 1983 and then moved to Belfast to work as the production & technical manager of a local polymer processing company for 5 years before commencing a PhD at Queen’s university Belfast (QUB).
She was appointed lecturer at QUB in 1993 and in 1999 became the first woman to be appointed to a chair in engineering in Ireland. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2011, awarded an OBE for services to higher education in 2013 and elected Fellow of the Irish Academy of Engineering in 2017.
Eileen’s research is in the development and processing of advanced thermoplastic polymers and composites with applications in areas from aerospace to medical devices and with a focus on sustainability. She has published over 200 papers, won research funding in excess of £18 million and supervised over 40 PhD students to completion. She has also won two UK awards for excellence in technology transfer.
Eileen has actively campaigned for gender equality in STEM for many years. She chaired WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) Northern Ireland from 2002 to 2005 and led the initiative that resulted in QUB winning the 2005 WISE Ambassador Award. She was a founder member of the QUB Women’s Forum (1999) which led QUB to win first prize in the Royal Society Athena Awards for the advancement of women in SET (2002). Recent work to promote gender equality in STEM includes contributing to the Women in STEM MATRIX Position Paper, May 2018 (MATRIX is the Northern Ireland Science Industry panel) and numerous invited presentations to major multinational companies in the UK and Ireland. She is also a WISE UK Ambassador.
Steering group panel
Mary McKenna MBE
Mary McKenna MBE
Mary McKenna is a well networked Northern Irish technology entrepreneur and angel investor. After a long corporate career as a Director of Finance in London and a spell as a Silicon Valley dotcommer she co-founded online learning company Learning Pool in 2006 and successfully exited from the business in 2014 so that she could return to working with earlier stage startups and scaleups.
Since selling Learning Pool 5 years ago Mary has worked extensively with especially first time and female entrepreneurs and she has angel invested in 8 early stage tech startups to date, 4 have female founding teams and 2 are Northern Irish companies.
She is one of the Entrepreneurs in Residence at Saïd Business School (University of Oxford), an advisor to several governments, an EU Horizon 2020 innovation judge, a trustee of a small number of charities and social enterprises including the Centre for Acceleration of Social Technology and the first ever entrepreneur in residence at St Mary’s College, an all-girls secondary school in the working class Creggan area of Derry.
Mary was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty the Queen in the 2014 New Year’s Honours for services to digital technology, innovation and learning.
John Healy
OBE
John Healy
John Healy OBE is Vice President & Managing Director: Allstate Northern Ireland.
John has over 25 years’ experience in technology, predominantly in the financial services domain. He has extensive experience at leading global teams, developing strategy and delivering solutions to address business and technology issues.
Prior to joining Allstate, John led Citi’s delivery center in Belfast, providing IT, Operations, HR, Legal, Finance and Risk Services to the broader Citi group as one of 27 global delivery centers in its global network. Before serving in this position, John held senior management roles as head of technology and as a business unit manager for Citi, as well as senior roles at Grafton Recruitment, Liberty IT, J P Morgan Chase, St George Bank Treasury and Merrill Lynch.
John joined Allstate NI in January 2016 as Managing Director responsible for over 2,400 employees based in Belfast, Derry and Strabane. He was promoted to Vice President in July 2016.
John is the Executive Sponsor for the Women in Technology at Allstate (WITA) and the Embrace (LGBT) network. External to Allstate NI he is a Women in Business Diversity Champion and in June 2019 he was announced as the Northern Ireland Ambassador for Business in the Community.
John is the past President of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Queen’s University Employers’ Forum, a member of the CBI Digital Working Group and is a school governor.
John earned his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Engineering and Computer Science from Queen’s University Belfast. John was awarded an OBE for services to the economy in Northern Ireland in the New Year Honours 2020.
Emer Murnaghan OBE
Emer Murnaghan OBE
Emer Murnaghan is the Head of Responsible and Sustainable Business at GRAHAM Group. She joined GRAHAM Construction in 2011 and spent 7 years developing and implementing their Business Improvement Programme. She has recently been tasked with evolving and communicating a sustainable business strategy for the £750 M business which operates across the UK & Ireland. She works closely with the GRAHAM Group Board to ensure the vison and strategic approach aligns with the aspirations of the shareholders and reflects the collaborative approach of the business, which aims to deliver lasting impact for the diverse portfolio of customers, their stakeholders and the communities in which they work.
Emer is a Chartered Civil Engineer, a Chartered Environmentalist, a Chartered Member of the Institute of Water and a Fellow of Engineers’ Ireland. She has had a long history of supporting and influencing industry through her previous role with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). She was Assistant Regional Director of ICE Northern Ireland 2008- 2010. She was elected to the ICE Council and Executive Board in London between 2012-2018. In June 2015 she was awarded the OBE for services to civil engineering and further education in Northern Ireland. In November 2018 she was appointed Trustee and one of the Vice Presidents of the Institution of Civil Engineers with responsibility for the UK Regions.
She is keen to see the industry become more diverse and inclusive not only because it is the right thing to do but because there is a strong business imperative to accelerate this transformation.
She continues to be passionate about an industry and profession that exists to serve the fundamental needs of society.
Jacqui McKee
Jacqui McKee
Jacqui McKee is currently Director of the Advice & Compliance Directorate in the Equality Commission. This Directorate is responsible for the provision of advice and compliance support, training and guidance to employers and service providers on all aspects of their equality obligations, including good practice. It also provides advice to public authorities on their Section 75 equality and good relations duties and Disability duties.
Jacqui has held various roles within the Equality Commission since its formation and was previously employed by the Fair Employment Commission. Prior to this, Jacqui worked in the private sector. Jacqui is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development.
Gillian McColgan
Gillian McColgan
Gillian McColgan in the course of her career, has held Executive R&D, Business Analysis, and Product Management positions across wireless, optical, and data networking businesses. Most recently as the CTO of Hilco IP Merchant Banking.
Previously, Ms. McColgan was a founder and CTO of Marquis Technologies. Prior to Marquis, Ms. McColgan was founding team and the CTO of the Rockstar Consortium, where she led the reverse engineering and technical functions, generating assertion packages in support of roughly 100 licensing engagements across four distinct market areas. Ms. McColgan also led Rockstar’s Market Analysis function.
Prior to joining Rockstar, Ms. McColgan was with Nortel Networks for many years in a variety of roles in Europe and North America, the last of which was as CTO of the IP business where her responsibilities included supporting the bankruptcy auction process.
Ms. McColgan, is an experienced business leader with 30years of international experience in the telecommunications industry working in North American, Europe and Asia, she has a broad range of direct experience in patent and technology licensing, R&D product delivery and product P&L as a business manager for ICT products, relationship management , leading and planning product and customer engagement strategies with clients and partners. She is particularly valued by clients for her abilities to build sustainable competitive advantage and leveraging investments to build profitable revenues.
Rose Mary Stalker
Rose Mary Stalker
Rose Mary was appointed Chair of Invest Northern Ireland on the first of August 2019. Rose Mary is an experienced business leader, who has successfully held senior global positions at Executive Team and Board level, in organisations including Ford, Boeing and Rolls-Royce. She has been responsible for the successful delivery of multiple transformational projects in a range of disciplines; product development, programme management, manufacturing, logistics, service delivery, staffing and quality, across numerous industry sectors; aerospace, automotive, construction and energy. Since returning home, Rose Mary has successfully applied this experience to help a number of local SMEs and micro-businesses.
A graduate of Queen’s University Belfast, Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and the recipient of numerous awards, including the European Woman of Achievement in Business and European Automotive Woman of the Year.
Rose Mary is founder of 4C UR Future, a Not for Profit Community Interest Company, leading a cross-sector collaborative career inspiration movement, dedicated to helping young people (13yr olds) recognise their capabilities and make more informed GCSE choices, in order to realise their potential.
Appointed to the Economic Advisory Group by the Economy Minister in June 2020, Rose Mary is also a co-founder of the NI Makers Productivity Panel, a forum of senior leaders from industry, academia and government agencies that is proactively engaged in building capability and championing digital transformation. Rose Mary has recently (August 2020) become a member of the Investment Trade Advisory Group, convened by the Department of International Trade (DIT) and sits on the Brunel Challenge core team, which aims to accelerate the transformation of UK engineering capability and provide a foundation on which to build resilient industrial growth in a post-Covid world.
Rose Mary has served as Chair of The Prince’s Trust in Northern Ireland, Chair of The Manufacturing Task Force for Mid & East Antrim Borough Council and previously chaired The Colin Neighbourhood Partnership in West Belfast, Metal Forming Innovation Limited, Catagen Limited and been a Non-Executive Director of Catalyst (previously NI Science Park).
Renee O’Cleary
Renee O'Cleary
Renée has worked in the Department for the Economy (DfE) with roles spanning across Staff Training and Development, Policy and Strategy and most recently with DfE Skills Strategy. In her current post Renée is liaising with organisations, other DfE Divisions and government departments to help move forward the STEM skills agenda through the new Skills Strategy due for publication in 2021.
Renée’s role also includes helping create a clearer pathway on STEM Skills particularly around gender and other diversity areas and considering how these can be fully implemented in the new Skills Strategy.
Outside of her work in the NICS, Renée is a Board member of Glow NI and Founder of Your Happy Mind NI
Nuala Murphy
Nuala Murphy
Described by the Irish times as “one of the next generation of female business leaders in the North.” Nuala Murphy is a multi award winning professional marketer and entrepreneur and a community builder and connector by nature.
As a marketer she has worked with some of Northern Ireland’s most successful companies internationally, selling and marketing products, services and technology across many industries for 15+ years. As President of the lean in network Belfast Nuala has led and scaled the Lean In movement across Ireland over the past nearly 8 years..
As a director at tWIRPS, the Women’s investor ready project Nuala along with 3 successful entrepreneurs started a community interest group focusing on changing the stat of investment to women entrepreneurs, regionally. And finally as interim head of business at Diversity Mark, Nuala is channelling her expertise, leadership and passion into building a more equal and inclusive society working with Companies from all sectors across Ireland and the UK.
Recent accolades: Top 30 global #FemTech influencers 2019, RBS Ones to watch, Top 100 Startup UK list 2018 Sunday Times Maserati 100 2018 Digital DNA Entrepreneur of the year 2018
Fiona Longmuir
Fiona Longmuir
Fiona is the Education Manager for Ireland and Northern Ireland at the Institute of Physics. She is responsible for the IOP’s education work across the island of Ireland, including teacher training, recruitment and retention, working with our colleagues in Further and Higher Education, and ensuring that all spaces where physics is taught or learned are open, safe and welcoming.
Fiona has previously worked in science communications with Cancer Research UK and in educational outreach with University College London.
Mark Gillan
Mark Gillan
Mark is the Interim Belfast Digital Innovation Commissioner for Innovation City Belfast (ICB). The ICB partnership combines six of the city’s anchor institutions (Belfast City Council, Belfast Harbour, Catalyst, Queen’s University and Ulster University, with Invest NI as advisory partner), harnessing significant knowledge, resources and influence to create a world-class hub for research and innovation in Belfast, focused on FinTech, GreenTech and Life and Health Sciences, aligned to the government’s ‘10X Economy, A Decade of Innovation’ vision.
Mark started his career in aerospace before spending 15 years in various engineering leadership roles within F1, most recently as head of the race team at Williams F1. As CTO of Innovate UK, Mark was responsible for both the Strategy & Impact and Centres & Networks Governance Directorates (including the Catapult Network, KTN, Innovation and Knowledge Centres and Agri-Tech Centres), overseeing an annual funding portfolio of over £0.35B. As COO for Artemis Technologies Mark led the technical, manufacturing and services side of the business, whose mission is to lead the decarbonisation of the maritime sector, primarily utilising their transformative Artemis eFoilerTM system. Mark was also Programme Director for the 13-strong Belfast Maritime Consortium’s UKRI funded Strength in Places Programme, which Artemis Technologies lead, that is focused on developing zero emissions passenger ferries.
Mark is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Royal Aero Society and a Visiting Professor of both Surrey and Ulster Universities. At Surrey he previously held the Sir George Edwards Chair in Aerospace Engineering. Mark is also on the Board of the NI Chamber of Commerce.
Rebecca Walsh
Rebecca Walsh
Rebecca has a background in Aerospace Engineering with over 10 years’ experience in innovation, human centred design and service design.
Rebecca started her career in Bombardier Aerospace working in aerodynamic design. Very early in her career she was asked to work part-time in the Bombardier Innovation Team on future aircraft design, business efficiency and lean/transformational programmes.
Rebecca set up her own design and innovation consultancy in 2015 and worked with the voluntary and community sector to grow innovation capability as well as working with Equiniti, a leading technology solutions company.
More recently she worked with the Department of Finance Innovation Lab as the first Service Designer in the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS). Rebecca worked across all regional government department as well as local Government to promote service design and in particular human-centred design and design for citizens needs.
Rebecca is currently Design Director at Big Motive. She focuses on the delivery of high quality service and experience design projects for a range of clients in both the public and private sector.
Steering Group Activities
The high-level aim is “To have more girls participating in STEM education and STEM employment and that more STEM employers are fully inclusive and representative of a diverse workforce. Furthermore that by 2030, 30% of all young people moving into STEM are girls”.
This will be underpinned through a series of processes supporting key tasks:
- Research capability to baseline and monitor STEM participation rates and assess the impact of interventions in NI
- Infrastructure to support collective impact
- A service to improve the visibility of young STEM role models from NI and to promote the breadth of STEM career opportunities available
- A network and framework to support STEM employers improve gender balance within their organisation
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