I am thrilled that the students chose me as their winner. Thank you all so much! It’s been a lot of fun interacting with everyone over the last few weeks and we’ve had loads of interesting conversations.

I’d like to thank all the students who took part, and their teachers for signing up their classes to this incredible initiative. The level of curious questions from the students in the “Ask” section made me really think about everything from my school days to my current job and I thoroughly enjoyed our engaging and often quite funny live chats. It was so lovely to see everyone’s personality shine through.

From all the students whom I’ve met over the last few weeks, I have no doubt that there are some amazing future scientists and engineers among them and that our world is in safe hands.

I first heard about I’m an Engineer, Get me out of here! at a science communication conference. It sounded like a lot of fun but I was nervous, when I saw that I was picked for the Health Zone, that it would be a LOT of work. I have to say the I’m an Engineer team have been absolutely brilliant in putting this together. It ran smoothly and was so well organised, that it didn’t feel like work at all! A massive thank you to everyone at I’m an Engineer and Wellcome for organising such an event. I couldn’t recommend it enough.

Thanks to my friends and colleagues at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology for always supporting my science communication endeavours and to the other Health Zone engineers Eimear, Orla, Cillian, Tom and Sanjeev. I think it’s safe to say some of the technical questions were super challenging for us all and the students really kept us on our toes! There was always a friendly atmosphere in the live chats with you and all your amazing experiences and insights made the live chats so interesting. All the best for the future and hopefully we’ll come across each other again.

As for now, I’m looking forward to the next step of the process and putting the prize money to good use. I am currently developing a STEM road show for festivals and theatres and hope to take this all over the country and beyond! It’s my dream to bring STEM to those who least expect it and make STEM accessible to everyone.

Fiona x