Catherine Anthony

"My personality type is innovator, investigator and manager, which having read the descriptions, I think suits me really well. Innovator applies well to my personality, as I enjoy being creative and I get to do this in my work and social life; from design at work to cooking at home. I have always enjoyed maths and puzzles including sudoku and jigsaws because my mind is very logical, which falls inside the investigator profile. I am good with money, having managed to buy my first house at 26 and also save for some amazing holidays, these are traits which fall under the manager and investigator profiles. "

"My favourite part of my job and the thing I do most is work on designs tasks in projects. This involves creating 3D CAD models and producing drawings for manufacture. A client provides a specification, and I will create designs based on this. This means I get to be creative and have my ideas become real life objects. "

"At school, my dad encouraged me to follow in the footsteps of the three generations of engineers in our family. I didn't know what an engineer was, so I did some research and what I found looked quite interesting. So I took Maths, Further Maths and Physics at A Level to help me get into at university. I got a D in physics even with a tutor, but still managed to get into university to study a Bachelor's in mechanical engineer. At university, I discovered my love for design and after getting a first class degree, I went on to do a graduate scheme in mechanical design engineering within the nuclear sector, I worked my way up to become a senior mechanical design engineer. I took a brief break from Nuclear and worked for a company creating machinery for customers like Dominos Pizza. In the last two years, I completed a masters part time in Mechanical Engineering. But after nearly 6 years working in Nuclear, I decided to make a change into Aerospace, Design, Security and Technology. "

"In my spare time I love to go to the gym where I mostly do powerlifting and Crossfit. I also enjoy hiking and travelling; so anything really that gets me to see beautiful places. When I'm not outdoors, I like to bake and cook, spending time trying new foods and adapting recipes to make them even more delicious. I havealso had two papers published, including my bachelor's dissertation and an article on a work-based project. "

"Most days are spent working from my desk at home, although I do choose to go into the office about once a week. I am usually found modelling designs on Autodesk Inventor and creating drawings. My set-up includes two monitors, a laptop, a keyboard, a mouse and a spacemouse. This allows me to easily work on my designs by viewing relevant information on one screen and the design on another. The main project I have been working on recently is relatively small when compared to a lot of work at Atkins. There are only 10 people including project manager, human factors, designers, senior engineers etc. The project is over 5 months and is a detailed design project which means taking an existing design and finishing it so that it is manufactured and installed ready for operation. "

"I have 2 AS levels in French and Chemistry, 3 A levels in Maths, Further Maths and Physics. I then went on to achieve a First-class Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northumbria University which included a sandwich year. This meant that during the second year of university, I spent a year working in Industry. I worked for Vauxhall Motor's in the paint shop as a paint unit sealer engineer. More recently I achieved a distinction in a part time post-graduate Masters in Mechanical Engineering."