Gongali Model
Employer: Gongali Model
Gongali Model is a nanotechnology social enterprise dedicated to providing clean and sanitary water to everyone. Based in Africa, they put local communities at the heart of their activities by outsourcing local materials and creating jobs for local people. They hope that the way they operate will inspire children to develop successful businesses and initiatives that empower their communities. In 2021 – 2022, Gongali Model are working to install 1,000 water station filters across Africa, to help provide access to clean water to a huge number of households. Currently over 70% of Tanzanian households are without access to clean water.Who Are They?
Careers
To design, develop and distribute water filters, Gongali Model requires a lot of different STEM, and non-STEM, based roles.
Among the different roles at Gongali Model are:
- Laboratory Technicians
- Engineers
- Nanotechnologists
- Operations managers
- Loan managers
Science and Maths links
Topics in Science and Maths that link to Gongali model and what the company does:
- Chemical Reactions
- Organic chemistry
- Comunicable diseases
- Treating, curing and preventing disease
- Properties of matter
- Particle model
- Energy transfer
Sectors
Environment, Recycling, Science
Employer Size
Micro-enterprise (up to 10 employees, turnover under £2m)
Focus/reach
national
Case Studies
Employer Links
Jane Entwistle
Case Study:
Professor Jane Entwistle
Jane is Professor of Environmental Geochemistry at Northumbria University.
How pollution impacts our health
Jane travels the world to collect samples of environmental media such as soils, plants, lake sediments and dusts, which she brings back to her laboratory for analysis. She is interested in understanding how environmental pollution is linked to health, and the samples she collects help her examine this connection.
“We need to explore these relationships in more detail. Environmental exposures to pollutants are complex; complex geochemically and complex geographically.”
As research linking the environment to human health is starting to mature, Jane and her colleagues across the world are starting to understand the many ways we come in contact with pollutants in our everyday lives, even before we are born!
Geography, allotments and dust
At primary school Jane’s favourite subject was geography, as she was keen to learn about the earth and the environment. She took geography, biology and geology as A-levels and went to study physical geography at university.
“Learning about soils and plants at school inspired me to go to University, where I was encouraged to go into research, a career I had never considered until then.”
More recently Jane has been studying the levels of lead in soil across urban agricultural sites, like allotments. In high concentrations, lead can be bad for your health. Jane is also interested in studying indoor pollutants by studying dust samples from people’s houses.
Jane’s advice to young people
“Stick with it. Decide on an area of particular interest but keep your reading and learning broad; the environment needs people who see issues holistically.”
Outdoors
Jane enjoys being outdoors as much as she can. She particularly likes running and gardening. Here’s a photo of her in an allotment collecting soil samples.
Paul Mann
Case Study: Dr Paul Mann
Paul is a biogeochemist working at Northumbria University. Biogeochemists study the different chemical, biological and physical processes that create the natural environment we live in.
Ancient carbon
Paul spends many of the summer months in remote regions of Alaska, Canada or Siberia to collect water and soil samples for analysis. Thousands of years ago carbon was ‘locked up’ in the water and soil in these regions. Paul is trying to understand if that ancient carbon is now being released back into the environment.
“We need to understand this, as the release of ancient carbon may speed up climate change in our lifetime.”
SCUBA diving
Paul grew up miles away from the sea in Birmingham, UK. He remembers being told by a careers advisor that he should become a bomb disposal expert because he liked SCUBA diving and science.
“They laughed when I actually said I wanted to become a marine biologist. I grew up thinking I would never (a) be clever enough to go to university, (b) actually teach at a university, and (c) be able to travel to amazing places and do something I love.”
Paul has traveled to many interesting places for work, including living and working in Antarctica for 1½ years. His research has also taken him to the Congo river in Africa, the Mekong river in Asia, and a number of the great Arctic rivers draining Alaska and Siberia.
“I always loved the ocean as a kid, especially snorkelling. I then took up SCUBA diving. At school, I enjoyed science. Combining the two passions felt like the obvious thing to do.”
While studying, Paul has also had numerous other jobs to help pay the bills: working in call centres, door to door sales and banking.
Paul’s advice to young people
“Don’t let others tell you can’t do something. Follow what you want to do, irrespective of how you do in grades. I never got my ‘best’ grades in science. Take time after each step to work out where you are and what you want to do next, don’t be afraid to change direction at any point (you do have time – even if it doesn’t feel like it).”
Paul is currently working on a project called Cacoon, looking at how the Arctic Ocean will respond to changes in the supply of water, carbon and nutrients from land. It’s important to know this because it could influence the climate globally, affecting you, your family and maybe your children. NUSTEM have worked with Paul to create workshops for schools about Cacoon so that he can share his learning with students.
As well as researching biogeochemistry, Paul also teaches undergraduate students studying geography at Northumbria University.
Kate Winter
Case Study: Dr Kate Winter
Kate is a glaciologist working at Northumbria University.
The importance of ice
Kate studies what lies underneath the ice in Antarctica using radar. She is particularly interested to see how thick the ice is, and what the land looks like under the ice.
Radar uses radio waves to make images of the ice, and the land underneath it. It’s a bit like using X-rays to ‘see’ inside the body. Kate’s research is contributing to one of the defining issues of our time: climate change. She explains:
Once we know how thick the ice is, we can see how much it is changing. This is really important because global sea levels could rise if the ice in Antarctica melts.
From Scotland to Antartica
When Kate was younger she really questioned why things looked the way they did – for example, why there are hills, and sand dunes, and why rivers have bends in them.
Taking geography and geology at secondary school helped her find some of the answers to her questions. When she was told that ice could flow like a river she wanted to never stopp learning about ice!
Travelling to Antarctica is definitely the most amazing part of my job, but I also like to be creative, making drawings so that other people can understand the work I do.
After school Kate studied for a Geography and Geology degree at Aberdeen University. Then she studied for a Masters in Polar and Alpine Change at the University of Sheffield, and finally Kate completed a PhD at Northumbria University.
Kate’s advice to young people
Think about the kind of setting you’d like to work in (for example, in a big office, in a small office, at home, in a classroom, at the beach, in another country…). I wanted to work in Antarctica, so I had to find a career that would take me there!
Sewing and knitting
In her spare time Kate loves being creative and spends lots of time sewing and knitting. She recently finished an embroidery showing Antarctica and the currents in the Southern Ocean. These currents transport nutrients around the continent. The red cross shows the location of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station, where Kate does most of her research.
Kate recently wrote an article about her time in Antarctica which you can read online – Iron woman: searching for iron at the end of the earth.
Stewart Franks
Stewart is an Environmental Engineer who studies ways to protect people from floods, droughts and fires. He uses computers to understands how the climate changes over time. Stewart helped other engineers to develop an app to monitor the water supplies in big cities, like Sydney. Stewart enjoys football and he used to coach a local club.
Stewart’s most magnificent thing
Rainfall is very important natural resource for communities that undergo drought periods. You can make a rain gauge using everyday materials and record rainfall levels in you local area. Have look below:
Talib Butt
Talib is an Environmental Engineer who uses computers to understand how to look after the environment better, and improve our health and wellbeing. He advises people working in industry and university students how to better look after natural resources such as water, land, and air. In his free time, Talib enjoys dancing, especially Salsa.
Talib’s most magnificent thing
“Energy is all around us and gets transferred all the time! Static electricity can be really fun to explore with your children, and has many different applications in engineering.”
When you rub plastic, you transfer electrons (tiny particles with negative charges) from one material to the other. They are then stored in one material (making it a bit more negative) while their absence makes the other material a bit more positive.
Because plastic is an insulator, the electrons cannot flow through it so they effectively get stuck there – they are static.
Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd
Employer: Sir Robert McAlpine
Sir Robert McAlpine is a family-owned building and civil engineering company celebrating their 150 years of activities. During this time they have design and built and help preserve many iconic infrastructures around Britain. See how many you can recognise in the following video.
From their offices in Newcastle city centre and across other regions, Sir Robert McAlpine’s employees oversee many different projects across different sectors: from housing and offices to motorways and ports. They even built many schools around the country. Theres more to Sir Robert McAlpine than just engineering and engineers! The complex and fast-paced projects they are involved in, relies on a multidisciplinary team of engineers, designers, architects, quantity surveyors,environmental planners, project managers. They also employ people with a business and human resources background. If you are interested in engineering, project management and environmental sustainability, Sir Robert McAlpine might a good place for you. The types of job roles that they are looking to recruit and will need in the future include: Interested in know more about people working here? Have a look at their case studies which includes Lucy Collier, a package engineer
Who Are They?
Beyond engineering
Careers
Helpful School Subject Choices:
Sectors
Civil, Construction, Engineering, Environment, Rail
Employer Size
Large enterprise
Focus/reach
national
Case Studies
yesEmployer Links
