INWED2021
RECRUITING more than 1,000 engineers to support clinical engineering at the Nightingale hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic has earned a top award for an IPEM member.
Dr Helen Meese is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Care Machine Ltd, a business providing innovative technology solutions to medtech start-ups.
The Top 50 Women in Engineering (WE50) 2021: Engineering Heroes is run by the Women’s Engineering Society.
Dr Meese’s success at making the list was announced on International Women in Engineering Day, which is marked annually on 23 June to celebrate the achievements of outstanding women engineers.
Dr Meese said: ‘I am delighted and humbled to have received this award and be recognised as a Top 50 Women in Engineering for my work during the pandemic. INWED is a wonderful way to celebrate, each year, the immense contribution women make to the world of engineering. I hope I can, through this award, inspire young people to consider a career in this amazing profession.'
Dr Meese is an electro-mechanical power engineer, with more than 20 years’ experience in both academia and industry, and her early career was spent working in the defence industry. In 2013 she joined the Institution of Mechanical Engineers as a Policy Manager, firstly as Head of Engineering in Society and then as Head of Healthcare Policy, managing all aspects of the Institution’s medical technology and Healthcare output.
She founded The Care Machine Ltd in 2018 to provide innovative technology solutions, business management and training to medtech start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises and researchers. She has worked with several high-profile clients including the NHS, where she was responsible for recruiting more than 1,000 engineers to support the NHS clinical engineering services at Nightingale hospitals across the UK at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak.
She delivers thought leadership across the medtech sector, championing the importance of biomedical, pharmaceutical and mechanical engineering in medicine, and has appeared on TV and radio, as well as writing numerous reports and articles on healthtech-related matters.
She is a chartered engineer and, as well as being an IPEM member, is also a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). She is the host of the IMechE’s engineering podcast, Impulse to Innovation, as well as being Vice-Chair of the IMechE’s Biomedical Engineering Division and past Trustee. She is a member of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Healthcare Policy Topic Group and a Health Foundation Q-Community member.