Margaret Steel Innovation Award

The Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences is pleased to announce the third year of the Steel Innovation award. 

The theme for this year’s award is Climate Change.

Applicants are welcome to apply with any ideas related to climate change in a broad sense, such as a low carbon future, resilience and sustainability. Your innovation idea can be linked to your studies or can be something from your personal interest, hobby, passion.

All female undergraduate, Master and PhD students in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences are invited to apply. Both individual and group applications are welcome providing all applicants meet the eligibility criteria. 

Application deadline: 21 March 2022.

To submit your application, please use this application form and upload your application here.

For further information about the award, please email Kristen Turner at K.Turner1@leeds.ac.uk.

2021 winners

• Sara Jones, PhD student at the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Artificial Intelligence for Medical Diagnosis and Care, School of Computing.

• Christa Brown, PhD student at the Molecular and Nanophysics Research Group, School of Mechanical Engineering.

• Kristin Seidl, undergraduate student, studying for Product Design in the School of Mechanical Engineering.

• Zoe Norgett, undergraduate student, Medical Engineering in the School of Mechanical Engineering.

More details about their projects are available here.

2020 winners

• Susannah Billig, MEng in Civil and Structural Engineering, at the School of Civil Engineering.

• Foteini Zagklavara, PhD student from the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Fluid Dynamics.

• Jessica Proctor, PhD student from the Centre for Doctoral Training in Fluid Dynamics.

More details about their projects are available here.

Dr Margaret Lilian Steel was born in Guisborough on 30 November 1928. She spent her early childhood in India, where her father was an engineer in the civil service, and she was home taught by her mother. They returned to England just before the outbreak of World War II, where Margaret continued her education in mainstream schooling. 

Margaret was always inquisitive as a child and when she left school, encouraged by both parents, she decided to study for a degree in Physics at Bedford College in London, an unusual choice of subject for women at that time.  

Armed with her degree, Margaret embarked on a scientific career with Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), where she stayed until retirement age. Within the company, she was often thought to be eccentric and many of her ideas were considered by some as “crazy”, but her ability to “think out of the box” led her to become one of the company’s most prolific inventors.  As an example of her work, she was responsible for the science behind a biodegradable wound dressing and a fabric that is widely used in wallpapers and to stick on surfaces to prevent slipping. 

After her retirement from ICI, she worked with a private company on the development of carbon ceramic composites, where her innate ability was called upon to find solutions to scientific barriers that arose throughout the process. 

Margaret continued to work until, very sadly, she was affected by Alzheimer’s disease in 2005. However, with the help of medication, she maintained her ability to question the world and discuss science until her death from heart failure in June 2014.  

Having never married and with no surviving family, it was Margaret’s wish that her money be used to help young scientists to become the inventors of the future. In her Will, she requested that the Steel Scholarship Fund be created to provide awards to students who showed a particular aptitude for innovation, thereby continuing the path she had followed throughout her life.