The world is my oyster

With a career spanning over a decade, chartered engineer Marisa Kurimbokus has already achieved so much, working in a variety of important and exciting areas of the sector. From product design and systems engineering to the automotive, power and electronics industries, Marisa is a talented and successful engineer with the world at her feet and was crowned our 2024 Young Woman Engineer of the Year at the end of last year.

Marisa grew up enjoying and excelling at maths and physics in school, but coming from two nonprofessional immigrant parents, she did not know what a professional career could look like and what to aspire to. However, when she was a teenager, she made the decision to continue her love of maths and become a maths teacher. But that all changed when her friend dragged her along to a lecture about careers in engineering.

“My friend decided she wanted some company at this lecture. In the end, ironically, I became the engineer, and she became the maths teacher!” she says.

Marisa started her engineering career at Jaguar Land Rover as a systems engineer and realised how much she enjoyed the design process. Wanting to do more hands on design work, she moved to Triumph Motorcycles where she was a senior design engineer designing accessories for motorbikes. Then, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, she left and joined power electronics consultancy Lyra Electronics, where she was senior mechanical engineer.

In her most recent role, Marisa led a team to design and manufacture high-speed air compressors primarily for hydrogen fuel cells, which are the future of net zero transport. She worked on developing the air compressors to be used on the London bus network, both for new buses and retrofitting. “You pump air and hydrogen into a fuel cell and get water and electricity that can then be used to power vehicles,” she says. “It could work in power generators and really anything you need electricity for.”

Winning our 2024 Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award was a really proud moment for Marisa to have her work recognised and celebrated, and she is looking forward to using this platform to inspire the next generation.

“Engineering is a creative and dynamic industry,” she says, “but as a society, we don’t celebrate the breadth of engineering and how much there is on offer, which is why the IET’s awards are so important.” Having this recognition alongside the wealth of experience and practice in such exciting areas of the industry, Marisa feels like the world is now her oyster.

“I’ve worked hard to get to the point where I can make a difference. Now, I’m not just learning, but I’m able to contribute and give back. It’s great to be able to work independently on projects or to even take it a step further and start mentoring other people and supporting them through their careers, which I really enjoy.”

Applications for this year’s Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards are now open! Head to youngwomenengineer.theiet.org.