First Australian female to receive Honorary Fellowship

Engineers Australia’s (EA) immediate-past president Dr Marlene Kanga, has been awarded an IChemE Honorary Fellowship – the first female of only five engineers in Australia to hold this title.

The award recognises Kanga’s outstanding contribution to the engineering profession and in particular, as her presidency of EA as a chemical engineer (the second woman to hold this position in its 95 year history).

Kanga has over 30 years chemical engineering and leadership experience and is a mentor and supporter of networks for women engineers and scientists in the Asia region. She has extensive experience in the oil, gas and chemical industries and is an expert in the areas of process safety and risk engineering. All this while balancing work with family life and raising two sons.

After studying chemical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Kanga then went on to receive an MSc and a DIC in Process Safety from Imperial College, University of London, before completing her PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney.

Kanga participated as Project Fellow in the first ever project on process safety at the Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering, University of Sydney. It was here that she developed the first documents in process safety, setting land use safety criteria. This was soon followed with the development of procedures for hazards analysis and hazard and operability studies for the NSW Department of Planning. These have formed the basis of the guidelines for the regulation of hazardous industries throughout Australia.

She is the founder and current director of iOmniscient, a business that has developed world leading patented software technology for automated intelligent video analytic systems.

In 2014, Kanga was appointed as a Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia. She has been listed in the Top 100 Engineers in Australia in 2013 and 2014 and the Top 100 Women of Influence in Australia in 2013.

Kanga said that she was honoured to receive the IChemE Honorary Fellowship, especially as being the first woman in Australia to be so recognised.

“I am very passionate about the chemical industry and the contribution it makes to the well-being of Australians.”

Kanga also highlighted how important it is for EA and IChemE to work closely together for the benefit of its members.

“Importantly, we have the opportunity to inform the community about the contributions of chemical engineering and also to engage them in constructive discussion about issues of concern.

“Together we can have greater clout in informing government about key issues and hopefully have an influence on policies that affect the industry.”

IChemE director Australasia, Peter Slane, said that during her role as EA president Kanga helped to forge closer relations between our two organisations and had done much to help raise the profile of the chemical engineering profession in Australia.

“She is also an excellent role model for young women starting out in the profession, showing that gender should not be a barrier to achieving career aspirations.”

IChemE Honorary Fellowships are reserved for distinguished individuals from the chemical and process industries that have made significant contributions to the field.