It's International Women in Engineering Day 2026 and this year we are so excited to introduce our guest Jessica Gagen.

Jessica is an aerospace sales engineer at Gulfstream Aerospace, a Miss England and Miss World UK winner, and one of the most visible STEM advocates in the country. Her route into engineering didn't follow a straight line, it went through a modeling career, a supermarket shelf, a physics resit at 23, and a pageant stage in front of cameras from 112 countries. But every step of it made her the engineer she is today.

In this episode, Jessica talks about why she chose engineering after reverse-engineering the careers of global CEOs on LinkedIn, what it actually means to be a sales engineer, and how skills from modeling and pageantry translate directly into high-pressure technical environments. She also shares her honest take on what holds young people back from engineering and what visibility really means when you're the first engineer to win Miss England.

Whether you're a student trying to make sense of where your degree could take you, or someone who still thinks engineering means overalls and a lathe, this one is for you.

Josh sits down with Mamta Singhal MBE, who found her calling early, taking apart plugs and mechanisms as a child long before she knew the word "engineer."

Inspired by James Dyson and a Tom Hanks film about a toy designer, she set herself a single goal: to engineer the things that make children smile. She studied product design engineering at Glasgow University and the Glasgow School of Art, landed a graduate placement at Dyson, and at 23 was working at Hasbro on Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Action Man.

In this episode, Mamta takes Josh through a career spanning Hasbro, Coca-Cola and Mattel, and into her incoming role as Vice President of the IET. She talks about form and function as inseparable, the importance of company culture over title, and why she's never had a plan B.

The conversation moves into the territory that drives her now: getting more women into engineering and keeping them there, the role of male allies, mentorship as a duty rather than a favour, and her new venture, the Top Percent Club, supporting senior women navigating the altitude at the top of the profession.

Mamta is honest about the failures behind the awards, the Hoover rejection before the Dyson job, the dozens of knockbacks for every success and makes the case that engineering needs less stereotypical engineers, not more of the same.

A genuinely inspiring conversation about purpose, resilience, and leaving a legacy.

What does it actually take to build a career in engineering when the path is anything but straight?In this episode, Josh sits down with Susan Ipri-Brown, immediate past president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, one of the oldest engineering institutions in the world. From a grandfather who never doubted she'd follow him into the profession, to internships at General Motors, to teaching, to leading ASME, to starting her own company, Susan's "squiggly line" is a masterclass in adaptability.We get into the gap between what universities produce and what industry needs, why students underestimate the story they've already built, and how knowing your capabilities, including the ones you don't yet have, changes the way you grow. Susan also makes the case for professional societies as a place to lead before your job lets you, and reflects on what mentorship really looks like across a career.A genuinely transatlantic conversation on workforce development, self-awareness, and why engineering is, at its heart, about possibility.

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