Engineer, author and TV presenter Dr Shini Somara is to receive one of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s top awards next month for her exceptional efforts in promoting engineering to the public.
Shini will receive the Rooke Award – named after the former industrial titan Sir Denis Rooke – at the Academy Awards dinner in London on 9 July.
Shini was recently announced as the presenter of Air TV’s Masters of Reinvention, a six-part series for the factual channel Yesterday on UKTV Play. In the new series, she will turn to back copies of Practical Mechanics magazine – once the bible of British inventors – and challenge a dream design team to update its vintage blueprints for the 21st century.
Shini’s latest book Engineers Making a Difference, published last year and distributed to 16,000 secondary schools across the UK, celebrates the diversity of the engineering profession. She produces and hosts multiple podcasts and other digital media content aimed at promoting underrepresented groups and women in STEM.
With a career spanning over two decades, Shini has significantly influenced the engineering landscape, particularly in inspiring young people and marginalized groups to pursue STEM careers. Her popular YouTube series, Crash Course Engineering and Crash Course Physics, have collectively garnered nearly 60 million views, making complex engineering concepts accessible and engaging to a global audience. These series have been incorporated into educational syllabi, amplifying their impact.
A graduate of Brunel University London, Shini holds an engineering doctorate in computational fluid dynamics and a first-class honours degree in mechanical engineering.
Shini currently serves as Pro Chancellor of Brunel University. Her tireless efforts have fostered a more varied and inclusive future for the engineering sector, while also increasing public understanding of the field. She aims to strengthen relationships between academia and industry, promoting innovative, conscious, and sustainable engineering solutions through a spirit of inclusion.
Nominating Shini for the Rooke Award, Dawn Bonfield MBE FREng, Professor of Practice in Engineering for Sustainable Development at King’s College London, says:
“Dr Shini Somara has worked consistently over 20 years to change the face of engineering. As a female engineer from an ethnic minority she has created multiple engagement mechanisms across multiple platforms to inspire our next generation of engineers, and the impact of her work has been significant and far-reaching.”
Dr Shini Somara says:
“Receiving the The Rooke Award is a huge honour and terrific recognition of my twenty-year engineering journey, which began with improving thermal building simulation and later evolved to improving the public perception of our sector as a whole. Sustainability drives me, both environmental and social. My work is partially guided by a deep academic interest but mostly steered by my own personal experiences in industry. Engineers are society’s unsung superheroes, and it is my hope that in communicating the good in what we do, we may inspire and welcome engineers of diverse and inclusive talent, to tackle the broad range of inevitable challenges that lay ahead.”
Everyone at Air TV passes on their huge congratulations to Shini on this great honour!
