From spearheading a bushfire response to encouraging women in STEM, Madeleine McManus doesn’t like to be pigeon-holed into one field of engineering.
Madeleine McManus OAM FIEAust’s career is about connecting people, both literally and figuratively.
Earlier this month, the CEO of the Centre for Professional Engineering Education and Centre for Pavement Engineering Education (CPEE) was awarded the John Shaw Medal by Roads Australia, in recognition of her outstanding and innovative leadership in Australia’s roads and transport industry.
“Roads and infrastructure are the number one asset in any community, because they connect how people live, work and play,” McManus told create. “It’s such an interesting area; we’re innovating around making it more smarter, sustainable and resilient to accommodate extreme weather.”
She has also worked on several autonomous transport projects, such as the autonomous helicopters for bushfire response, and said she is generally fascinated by creating multi-modal transport systems that ensure equitable access and safe, sustainable and efficient connectivity.
However, McManus doesn’t like to be pigeon-holed into one field of engineering.
She feels her career is more about using curiosity, innovation and a collaborative approach to problem solving to make a positive impact on behalf of the community. Many of those projects don’t have anything to do with transport or infrastructure.
For example, at Monash she created the Monash Industry Team Initiative (MITI), an innovation acceleration program that connected students, academia, industry, government and NFP.
A true collaboration, this multi-award-winning program embedded under- and postgraduate teams into industry to solve real-life problems. Many successful innovations and partnerships were started with these projects, and MITI has been recognised by three prestigious national industry awards marking collaboration between universities and industry.
McManus is also a Global Director of Robogals, a volunteer-run non-profit through which university students run workshops that encourage schoolgirls into STEM careers.
“Most people in primary and secondary schools still think of engineering as roads and bridges, but it’s so much more than that,” she explained. “It’s about how cool stuff works and how to make things happen.
“We have now interacted with more than 150,000 girls globally and, anecdotally, we hear that every single woman studying engineering at any university has had some sort of interaction with Robogals.
“It may not be the only reason why they choose to study engineering, but it’s certainly a catalyst.”
Life too short to be a passenger
McManus has made a similar mark in the road engineering sector which was notable for a lack of gender diversity.
Since she took over as CEO of CPEE three years ago, she has increased the diversity on the board, introduced scholarships to encourage women into leadership positions, and created new pathways for women in the sector to connect and support each other.
A couple of other projects stand out for McManus as she reflects on her career.
One MITI project brought together leaders in community, academia, Rotary Melbourne and industry to design, develop, prototype and scale a gamified water trailer.
The trailer is used within remote Indigenous communities, encouraging children to dance to music with lights and a water show, and contributing to reducing the impact of trachoma.
“This project has now been going for many years and we are just about to build the third trailer, with many volunteers and alumni still involved,” McManus said. “For me, it illustrates the impact that can be achieved when we work together as a team across areas – from a spark of an idea to impact in the community.
“Though there were many challenges, including some design failures, the team was resilient and persevered until we got the outcomes we needed.”
She also nominated the Black Saturday bushfire response with Engineers Australia, which brought together engineers, community leaders, industry players and non-profits to focus on the rebuild necessitated by the community tragedy.
“The collaboration that came together to focus on rebuilding and supporting the communities to recover made such a major positive impression on me and I have strived to create that focus and collaborative approach in whatever I do.”
McManus has also been National Director of Engineers Australia, the youngest Chair of the Chartered Institute of Transport and Logistics, a member of the Victorian Advanced Manufacturing Council and a board member of the Monash University Engineering and IT Foundation.
She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her services to engineering and education in 2017.
“I think life is too short to be a passenger,” she said. “You need to stand up and be involved with things, and use your skills to look out for others who are less fortunate.
“I’m curious about so many areas of endeavour, new horizons and technology. About what you can achieve when you combine multi-disciplined practices across a bunch of different areas – I just love it.”