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Spotlight on Paula McMahon 

On International Women's Day, we spoke to Paula McMahon, a Civil Engineer at Sir Robert McAlphine and Honorary Professor at Teesside University.
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In recognition of International Women’s Day, Life throws the spotlight on women working in exciting STEM jobs in the North East. We caught up with Paula McMahon, a Civil Engineer at Sir Robert McAlpine and Honorary Professor at Teesside University.

I became interested in science at an early age as I always loved solving problems. At school I liked doing experiments and loved solving maths problems even more.

My mum always encouraged me and my sisters to work hard and do whatever we wanted as a job and there’s no better role model than that!

I studied Civil Engineering at university and although I did hit obstacles along the way, I’ve always believed that life is a journey and you just need to step over or around any bumps in the road.

In my job as a civil engineer, I use science in a very practical way everyday through calculations.

Any girl, or boy, can go into science and I would say my goal is to help more people understand that engineers and scientists can help to save the planet.

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