James Richards

Said the following about Ruth Shevelan:

“Having worked on an early engagement activity with Ruth previously, I had asked if she’d be able to partner in delivering a larger outreach project that I had been asked to support, which was to become one of Network Rail’s largest Year of Engineering projects called "Fast Trackers". The accredited programme consisted of a sustained piece of early engagement that saw c200 students being given experience of university life, engineering careers and culminating in a 3-day residential and an employer led project that contributed to graduating from an Industrial Cadets Gold programme.

Having absorbed the brief, Ruth had to develop and present a business case to gain support from her leadership team at Mott MacDonald and secured financial backing. She then recruited support and led her team to develop a hugely impressive, exceptionally professional and excitingly ambitious employer project as a part of the bigger outreach endeavour. The employer project element was launched at the university visit and ensured that the students were guided through their research in order to gather the information required to develop their high-speed rail case study during the residential element of the programme. The residential element was acknowledged by the client as having been a resounding success and “exceptionally professional”, which was largely down to the materials that were developed by Ruth and her team. Ruth also had a broader involvement in the wider delivery aspects and worked harmoniously alongside Network Rail graduates to deliver what we expect will be acknowledged as one of the best outreach programmes of 2018.

Ruth’s drive and commitment is immense and motivating. She is exceptionally professional and without her contribution (in delivering through her team), the project would not have been as successful as it turned out to be. Her keen attention to detail ensured that the employer project met the requirements of a professionally managed accreditation process that saw c200 students graduate with a meaningful award.

I have no hesitation in recommending her for this award.“

Matt Dalton - **HAS LEFT**

Said the following about Ruth Shevelan:

“Ruth is an extremely intelligent, proactive and logical thinking engineer who joined Mott McDonald in 2015. She is currently an assistant engineer at Mott MacDonald in the Overhead Contact Systems (OCS) design team. Her attitude, drive and determination have made her an essential part of Mott MacDonald’s future and a rising star of the rail industry. She is responsible for implementing multiple new processes and schemes, all of which have made a sizeable impact to the Rail Industry, the OCS Design Team and the wider company. Several of these are outlined below along with examples of her contributions to project successes.

Ruth has introduced a Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) programme in the Altrincham office. It is credit to her drive, enthusiasm and determination that to date this has culminated in over 30 engineers volunteering in community STEM activities impacting over 2000 students. All events held so far have received glowing plaudits from participating students, teachers, and external STEM co-ordinators. Ruth has also expanded her involvement with STEM by collaborating with clients and competitor organisations to increase the positive impact on the local community. Particularly noteworthy was her involvement in the Fast Trackers outreach event earlier this year, where she worked collaboratively with Network Rail to deliver the event whilst also leading a team to create a rail engineering challenge project. This scheme saw 140 students aged 16-19 undertake a 3-day engineering residential in addition to industry and higher education visits.

Ruth was recently involved in a project to rewrite the railway standard for OCS design, a project in which she received commendation from the client for her excellent work. This project encountered unavoidable challenges early on when the majority of the team left to work abroad; it was staggering how the commitment and proactiveness of one person could make a huge difference to the project delivery, both technically and managerially.

Ruth has also driven through the development of a new OCS structure loading tool for the design team. This innovative solution considers the numerous loading configurations set out in the latest Network Rail standard for OCS structural loadings. The tool development required extensive self-learning of computer coding, and its implementation has delivered significant efficiency savings and has been implanted and heavily used across multiple projects with technical and commercial benefit.

Additionally, Ruth has led a team to develop a work experience programme for students to enable them to experience a variety of different engineering disciplines, while also exposing them to the multi-disciplinary culture that is essential for the successful implementation of railway projects. Using her excellent interpersonal skills and experiences from leading the local team, Ruth is also contributing to a Mott MacDonald company-wide initiative to increase the capacity of the organisation to provide similar work experience placements. It is anticipated that both activities will encourage emerging talent into a STEM career. Ruth’s passion and flare for furthering the development of individuals within engineering should be commended, as should her accomplishments and ambition for continued improvement.

Ruth has tirelessly undertaken the above whilst maintaining a consistently high standard in her day to day engineering project work, as well as striving towards obtaining Chartered Engineer status in the future. Ruth is invaluable to Mott MacDonald and the Railway Industry in general and consistently exceeds expectations.“