National Executive 2011/12

Read the National Executive blog here.

Also see previous National Executive teams.

To contact any National Executive member, please use our contact page or alternatively send an email.

The National Executive meet once a month. See minutes from previous meetings and agendas for future meetings.

 

 

Andrew Lamb
Chief Executive

andrew.lamb [at] ewb-uk.org

Andrew's first taste of engineering in international development was at a talk run by a fledging student club in Cambridge called Engineers Without Borders. He was a second year undergraduate in 2002, and very soon got involved in fundraising and became Co-Chief Executive as a volunteer in his final year. After graduating, Andrew worked with the University of Cambridge Office for Community Affairs and co-founded the Humanitarian Centre in his spare time. He worked for more than three years with disaster relief organisation RedR, including working at their office in Nairobi. He was the technical editor of the world's first UNESCO Engineering Report and was a Visiting Lecturer for EngineeringUK. He is a director of the Appropedia Foundation which runs the Appropedia website - a sustainability wiki. Andrew became Chief Executive of EWB-UK in December 2008 after winning a World of Difference grant from the Vodafone Foundation.

 

Alistair Cook
Learning

alistair.cook [at] ewb-uk.org

Alistair first became involved with EWB-UK through the Glasgow branch and after two years as national publicity co-ordinator undertook a 2008 EWB-UK placement in South Africa, working with a local partner in helping provide water wells to local communities. Outside EWB-UK he has also been involved in the International Development Design Summit having participated in Boston 2007, Ghana 2011 and helped organise Brasil 2012. Between times he has developed an innovative funding model for solar stoves in Bolivia, helped set up EWB in Brazil and worked with the Professional Network in Glasgow on their project in Malawi. Alistair is currently the Head of Learning for EWB-UK, having previously headed the research team and run the inaugural year of the EWB Challenge, EWB-UK's exciting design challenge to all engineering students.

 

Aimi Elias

Aimi Elias
Training

aimi.elias [at] ewb-uk.org

Aimi's adventures with EWB-UK first started when she attended a Clare Farm Course in 2008; she has been enamoured with the Training programme ever since. Whilst studying Civil Engineering at Imperial College London, she has been treasurer and training co-ordinator of the Imperial branch and spent the summer of 2009 building rainwater harvesting systems in Tanzania. Upon graduation Aimi has been an EWB-UK intern running the Small Is... Festival near Rugby, worked for Practical Action developing technical briefs for Practical Answers and modelling the biomass consumption of Sri Lanka, and volunteered with Seva Mandir in Udaipur, India. In February 2011 she had the opportunity to co-ordinate the Training programme at a national level and is keen to enthuse people about appropriate technology and international development.

 

  Ben Krawiec
Outreach

Ben.Krawiec [at] ewb-uk.org

Ben first got involved with Engineers Without Borders whilst in his first year studying Civil Engineering at Cardiff University, and became the branch's treasurer in his second year taking part in Outreach and other branch events, including a trip to the Centre for Alternative Technology, as well as being a Regional Outreach Coordinator for the Wales and SW England branches. On starting an industrial placement, with Caerphilly County Borough Council, this year it seemed the perfect time for him to get involved with EWB-UK at a national level.
Find out more about Outreach here.

 

Greg Costello-Mcfeat
Bursaries

greg.costello-mcfeat [at] ewb-uk.org
Greg first became involved in EWB-UK in his first year at Exeter, where he helped co-found the branch and was treasurer. From there he was heavily involved at the branch level, helping fundraise, organize training weekends and develop the branch. The following year he took the role of Bursaries Team Liaison Manager, which was his first involvement at a national scale. This will be his first year on the National Exec and hopes to bring about a new approach to the way bursaries are run.
Natalie Quinn
Professional Network

Natalie first got involved in EWB while studying Civil and Structural Engineering at the University of Manchester, taking on the role of Outreach Coordinator. After graduating she spent four months in Pisco, Peru working with Pisco Sin Fronteras helping to rebuild homes and community buildings destroyed in an earthquake. This involved labouring alongside local builders on all aspects of construction from digging foundations, making reinforcement cages and pouring concrete. The highlight of this experience was working with a major Peruvian steel manufacturer to develop GGBS from waste products to be used as a cement substitute. Natalie is currently studying for a PhD investigating the seismic behaviour and retrofitting strategies of historic Peruvian structures at the University of Bath. Natalie hopes to encourage more people into the professional network from all backgrounds and increase the number and scale of events that take place.
Chris Weekes Chris Weekes
Branch Support

chris.weekes [at] ewb-uk.org

 

Chris started his working life in retail banking, however went back to the University of Exeter to study towards a new career in civil engineering after becoming increasingly disillusioned. Whilst in his first year, Chris helped set up the Exeter branch of EWB-UK as its first president. He has spent time with New Build Uganda working on sustainable composting toilets and rainwater harvesting facilities for rural primary schools and has industrial experience working with Cook Costello in New Zealand and Parsons Brinckerhoff in the UK. Winner of the Dean El Mariesh prize for promoting Engineering within the University of Exeter, Chris plans to increase communications between branches and encourage growth through new ideas from across the membership.

Find out more about what I do in the Branch Support section.

 

Richard Cunliffe
Membership

richard.cunliffe [at] ewb-uk.org

Richard was involved in EWB-UK at Imperial College London as Training Co-ordinator and subsequently President for two years graduating from Mechanical Engineering in 2009. He has spent the last four summers in Tanzania doing construction projects, mostly rainwater harvesting systems, but currently works for a company who make bespoke industrial automation. Richard's role on the National Executive is Membership Co-ordinator, so he will be designing the new membership scheme to enable EWB-UK to better understand and support it's members as they become more effective in the alleviation of poverty.

 

Muhammad Tahir
Communities of Practice

Muhammad.Tahir [at] ewb-uk.org
Muhammad an Electrical Engineer from the University of Sheffield was first introduced to EWB-UK through the Sheffield branch. The subsequent talks and events organised by the branch got him interested in EWB-UK.  Whilst on his placement year, he joined EWB-UK's fundraising team and helped raise funds through National Grid's sponsorship scheme. He then went on to take up the position of a placement manager, where he was responsible for creating placement opportunities, recruiting and managing volunteers. Muhammad now works for Siemens on a graduate program. He currently essays the role of a National Coordinator for Communities of Practice EWB-UK. His main responsibilities include disseminating managing and compiling EWB-UK's vast knowledge base.
Stacey Clifford
Communications

stacey.clifford [at] ewb-uk.org

Stacey graduated in 2009 with an MEng in Civil Engineering with French from the University of Sheffield. She then spent three months volunteering in Morocco as part of the EWB-UK placements programme, working on water treatment and agricultural projects. She then went on to spend three months as an intern at the EWB-UK office, helping with the training programme. Before starting work as a Civil Engineer with Kier Construction in September 2010, Stacey spent two months volunteering in a remote village in the north of Malawi, helping to build a community education centre with a small charity called Phunzira.  Since then she has also taken part in a RedR supported construction workshop in rural Bangladesh looking at hazard resistant housing.

 

Hayley Howard
Education

hayley.howard [at] ewb-uk.org
Hayley first got involved with EWB-UK in her second year setting up the Bath branch, forming part of the south-west training team and managing an EWB-UK placement in South Africa for two years. Her degree culminated with a EWB-UK research project, designing a biodiesel transesterification plant in rural India and a two-month long trip to the community to implement her design. This lead to setting up a teaching engineering EWB-UK placement in the same community. One of the highlights of the education programme so far has been the set up and subsequent take up of the EWB Challenge at different universities across the UK. She graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Bath 2008 and is now three years into her E.On/EPSRC funded Transition Pathways PhD, conducting LCA studies of 'clean coal' technologies, in particular CCS, and where they feature in a low carbon UK economy. In May 2012 she begins her role as a research officer at Bath with the SUPERGEN-Hi Def consortium and will be conducting LCAs of distributed energy systems in the UK.
  Chesta Tiwari
Fundraising

chesta.tiwari [at] ewb-uk.org
 Chesta first got involved in EWB-UK in her second year of Mechanical Engineering and French, project managing an improved cookstoves (ICS) project in India. Whilst on Erasmus she went to several Ingénieurs Sans Frontieres-France events and helped organise events for a small humanitarian organisation working in Burkina Faso. It was during her year in industry that she first joined the Fundraising team, realising its full importance to the growth and potential of EWB-UK. The summer after she worked with an ICS social enterprise in India researching her dissertation on producing (cook) fuel briquettes from agricultural waste, which she affiliated with EWB-UK. During her final year, she became the Public Liaisons/Networking officer on the EWB Sheffield committee, co-organising the "Producing Global Engineers" event, and in February 2011 took on the role of Fundraising Coordinator.
Sarah Button
Fundraising

sarah.button [at] ewb-uk.org

Sarah’s interest in international development was sparked by her experiences travelling in third world countries with her family as a child. She joined EWB Imperial in 2008 and later became Vice President then Co-President of the branch. In 2009 she led the Imperial College Tanzania Rainwater Harvesting Project which built 3 ferro-cement rainwater harvesting systems in rural towns. The project now runs annually and has become a charity, Raincatcher, of which Sarah is a trustee. She graduated with a Masters in Chemical Engineering in 2011 and took a year out before starting a graduate job to work for EWB-UK and Raincatcher. Sarah will be one of two Fundraising Co-ordinators this year and will be focussing on corporate engagement.

 

 

Marcus Revington
IT (Information Technology)

marcus.revington [at] ewb-uk.org

Marcus is a graduate Electrical and Electronic Engineering graduate from the University of the West of England, Bristol. After graduating Marcus took the opportunity to work for a web development company designing highly bespoke custom e-commerce websites. After meeting a current National Exec member from 2011 Marcus started volunteering his time in helping out on the IT Team for EWB-UK. A year passed and having gained a great deal of experience with EWB-UK’s IT systems, applying to be on the National Exec was the logical next step.

Marcus intends to use his experience gained from commercial IT and apply it to the organisation, with the intention of updating and modernising the EWB-UK website and streamlining operations.

Being an engineer who ended up in a non engineering career Marcus is looking forward to keeping his interest fresh through the organisation whilst providing his time for a good cause.

Priya Kantaria
Finance

Priya.Kantaria [at] ewb-uk.org
 

Priya graduated with a Masters in Structural Engineering from Imperial College in 2007, when she was determined to design schools, hospitals and train depots. She helped on the design of the Northampton train depot and coordinated the procurement of the Lambeth Building Schools for the Future programme for some 15 secondary schools. Here she helped write forecasts and plan building projects. Priya also worked with Sir Robert McAlpine as a site engineer on the building of a 14 storey, garden-topped project for the Drapers Guild. She has recently joined EWB-UK where she is working with the mechanics of the organisation in finance.

 

Niels Campman
Operational Planning

niels.campman [at] ewb-uk.org
Niels graduated from Sheffield University in 2010 with an MEng in Mechanical Engineering with French. Specialising in renewable energy, he is now interested in understanding the role that technology has in combating energy poverty. He first became actively involve with EWB whilst in Sheffield, working with a small team to build a small wind turbine from scrap materials. Following on from this he was part of a team that organised a trip to a small NGO based in Guatemala to develop and implement the concept of a small scale, vertical axis wind turbine for rural applications. Since graduating he has undertaken a 6 month position at Practical Action Nepal, through the EWB placement scheme and is now working at Renewable Energy Systems Ltd, where he works on the development of renewable energy projects within the UK.

Jonny Gutteridge
International Partnerships

jonny.gutteridge [at] ewb-uk.org

Jonny volunteered on a health project in Tanzania in 1994 and went on to build a career in communications and project management in both international development and UK voluntary sector infrastructure organisations.  His role in EWB-UK includes developing our work with international partners, co-ordinating the international placements programme, supporting EWB-UK members to lead programme partnerships and helping to engage international partners in our research work.