Women in Civil, Resources and Environmental Engineering

Established in 2020, the Civil, Resources and Environmental Engineering Women’s Committee is comprised of both undergraduate and postgraduate students from different areas of study and diverse cultural backgrounds. We believe that this diverse combination can help us represent all female students studying within the Monash Department of Civil Engineering.

Our mission is to promote Engineering amongst the Departments’ female student population and to create a platform to discuss and assist with the issues met by female students during their academic studies as well as their personal lives, whilst studying at Monash.

We aim to achieve our goals by organising seminars, connecting students with industry, and creating a support system for female students who find themselves facing difficulties. We would also like to help connect female students and encourage them to participate in social activities. We have some relaxing social events up our sleeves as well, a great way to meet new people and have some fun.

If you would like to find out more, please get in touch with us by emailing women.in.cree@gmail.com.

In the meantime you can find out a bit more about our committee members below.

A/Prof. Alexa Delbosc - Academic Mentor

Alexa is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Transport Studies, Faculty of Civil Engineering at Monash University. After graduating from Harvard with a Masters in social psychology and from Monash with a Doctorate in transport, Alexa wanted to apply her social science research skills to solve real-world problems. Her research has covered such topics as the impact of transport on psychological well-being, understanding the psychology of fare evasion and exploring the changing mobility of the millennial generation.

Lara McCrabb - President

Lara is a third year undergraduate student majoring in Civil Engineering. She is passionate about engineering solutions that protect the Earth’s resources, and is pursuing a minor in renewable energy. To relax she enjoys painting and playing video games.

Disha Rishi Kundra - Vice President

Disha is a second year undergraduate student majoring in Civil engineering at Monash University. She is passionate about sustainable infrastructure development and eager to apply skills and knowledge in a real-world setting. She loves playing badminton and spending some time with nature when she is free.

Danyang Sun - Secretary

Dania is a fourth-year undergraduate student in the Chemical Engineering department at Monash University, minoring in Renewable Engineering. She is interested in sustainable development of engineering processes. She loves dancing and travelling in her free time.

Sabrina Bani - Women Resources

Sabrina is a Ph.D. candidate in Civil Engineering. Her passions include teaching languages and working on water resources projects. She has collaborated with industries for more than 10 years. In her free time, she enjoys spending time in nature and traveling.

Sneh Jangid - Women Resources

Sneh is a first year law and engineering student. She is yet to decide her engineering specialisation, however is interested in choosing mechanical or civil engineering. She also loves playing tennis and netball in her spare time.

Past events of Women in CREE

This event was held on October 15, 2021 and it was the first event organised by Women in CREE. The event guest was Dr. Alexa Delbosc who is a Director of Research Training and Senior Lecturer in Transport Engineering at Monash University and the mentor of Women in CREE.
The first event of Women in CREE was online because of COVID-19 and there were more than seventy participants attended the event. The event was started with a brief introduction of what is the purpose of our committee and what kind of events were we planning to organise throughout the year. Then our special guest Dr. Alexa Delbosc shared her career pathways with the participants. She also shared how she had entered the civil industry and how was her academic journey as a girl in a male dominated area back in 10 years ago. She described the importance of gender equality in engineering and how we can work together and can establish an equal opportunity. Lastly, there was Q&A panel session were participants asked questions to the speaker.
To attract more participants, our team distributed 10 Monash goodies to random participants by raffle draw. Overall, it was a successful event.
More details and session recording can be found: https://fb.watch/ch696ObePf/
Figure 1: Poster of Women in CREE’s first event
Figure 2: Picture of the first event where Dr. Alexa was presenting her slides
This was the second event organised by Women in CREE in 18^th of March 2022 and it was online as well due to COVID-19 restrictions. The event was organised focusing on two women who had completely different journey from each other and right now working in a big engineering company. Dr Beth Ebert, Senior Principal Research Scientist and Dr Snowie Healy, Associate for the Transport at Aurecon this both talented women joined our second event as a guest speaker.
Figure 3: Poster of Women in CREE’s 2nd event
Both talented individuals shared career developments and highlights of their life, how they coped with the changing working environment, and they told the importance of diversity in the workplace and what kind of barriers women face. The event was started same as the first event by introducing our team and lastly with the Q&A panel.
Around sixty people joined the event via zoom from Monash and it was a successful event for the whole team.
More details can be found: https://www.facebook.com/WomenInCREE.Monash
Figure 4: Picture of the second event where Dr. Snowie was talking about her Aurecon journey.
Figure 5: Picture of the second event where Dr. Beth was presenting her career journey
Figure 6: Picture of useful tips shared by Dr. Beth