DIAMOND WEBINAR – Women Employed in Transport

Dr Yvonne  Hail is a research fellow at the university of Stirling. Yvonne is a former transport manager who worked in the construction industry in Scotland who is now qualitative researcher with experience in conducting international and interdisciplinary research projects.

Cristina Marolda has been for almost 30 years Policy Officer at the European Commission, in charge of Research & Innovation in the transport system. She has always been active in supporting focused research and policy mainstreaming to reach a proper gender balance in mobility.

She is now an independent expert on Inclusive Transport Systems and Governance of Innovation and Disruptive Technologies.

Author of the ITF Report “The Gender Dimension of the Transport Workforce”. Wei-Shiuen is a member of the Scientific Committee of the World Conference on Transport Research Society (WCTRS) and co-chairs the Special Interest Group on Transport and Climate Change. She is a Research Affiliate at Stanford University, an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Oxford and a guest editor of “Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment”.

Lorna Gibson is Training Director for the QTS Group, a large enterprise owned by Renew Holdings and supplying Railway Infrastructure Engineering services throughout the United Kingdom. Lorna’s key role within the Group is that of Managing Director of QTS Training Ltd, a subsidiary company which supplies railway safety, on-track plant, health and safety and construction management training to the rail and wider industries.

Lorna is also a Director, and Past President, of the Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry, sits on the Developing Young Workforce Ayrshire Steering Group, is a founding member of Women in Rail Scotland, sits on the NSAR Rail Apprenticeship Quality Board and is Vice Chair of the Hansel Foundation.

Experienced Talent Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the transportation/trucking/railroad industry. Skilled in coaching, Training Programme Design, Training Delivery, Management, leadership, Interviewing, and Personality Testing. Strong human resources professional with a Master’s degree focused in Work and Organisational Psychology from Dublin City University.

Charlene brings over 20 years’ experience in the public transport sector having previously held senior board director roles in rail and aviation, including most recently with Virgin Trains. She has a strong track record of delivering and leading customer-focused transformation in transport and has a wide range of transition and business change experience including – improving customer and stakeholder processes and communications, delivering customer initiatives, employee engagement and organisational change.

Charlene’s focus at Network Rail will be with our customers and passengers. She will be leading the National Passenger and Customer Experience team (NP&Cx), which includes the national stations team, and the new Passenger Information During Disruption (PIDD) team. She is also the interim Director for Freight, representing the interests of the rail freight industry across the UK.

Heather Waugh joined the railway as a Train Driver with Scotrail in August 2006, having previously been an Operational Manager with Royal Mail for 10 years. In January 2019 Heather became Freightliner’s first ever female train driver in Scotland and, indeed, the only female freight train driver at all in Scotland.

She is passionate about issues around mental health, equality, diversity and inclusion and believes strongly in breaking down barriers, both mental and physical, which prevent women from excelling in areas that are still heavily male dominated within the rail industry.  She won ‘Highly Commended’ at the Women in Rail Awards 2020 in the category of ‘Inspirational Woman of the Year’.

Maria Chiara Leva is a Lecturer in Technological University Dublin in the College of Environmental Health, she is an associated PI in the Science and Technology in Advanced Manufacturing research centre and in the Centre for Innovative Human systems both in Trinity College Dublin. Chiara is the co-chair of the technical committee on Human Reliability for the European Safety and Reliability Association, former chair of the Irish Ergonomics Society and co-chair of the scientific steering group for the first Symposium on Human Mental Workload (H-Workload). Dr Leva has more than 70 publications on Human Factors, Operational Risk Assessment and Safety Management in Science and Engineering Journals, she is a member of the editorial board for two of those journals.