Case studies: Aerodynamicist: Lesley Douglas

Lesley graduated with a Masters degree in aero-mechanical engineering from Strathclyde University in 2011. She now works as an aerodynamicist for Thales UK in the land defence sector in Belfast.

From the outset, I knew I wanted a career involving science, technology and maths, but it wasn’t until a school trip to a Royal Air Force (RAF) base that I became fascinated with aircraft and all things engineering. Up until this point, I had not considered engineering degrees due to my lack of knowledge about the subject and the potential careers. After the visit, I decided that aeronautical engineering was my first choice and that the aero-mechanical engineering degree offered by Strathclyde University would be perfect for me.

I chose Strathclyde University as it was advertised as ‘first for engineering’ and was the top-ranked university for mechanical engineering in Scotland. The degree I wanted to do was also accredited with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) and the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) and I knew this was necessary to work towards chartership. The aero-mechanical degree covered a wide range of mechanical and aeronautical subjects and also had quite a bit of hands-on experience, which greatly interested me.

During university, I applied to Thales Belfast for a graduate aerodynamicist role, and after a successful assessment centre in spring, I was offered a position starting in August. I graduated from Strathclyde in June, and after moving across to Belfast, I enrolled on the graduate development programme with Thales and started settling into my job, with the help of another recently graduated aerodynamicist. The position requires me to provide airframe design and analysis using numerical tools for the development of new weapons systems and perform flight test results analysis to validate aerodynamic predictions.

In the past ten months, I have worked on a whole range of projects including simulated structural loading on urgent operational requirements for the defence sector, computational fluid dynamics analysis on our Future Anti-Surface Guided Weapons launcher, and prediction of aerodynamic forces on our Lightweight Multirole Missile. I was also fortunate enough to be selected as part of a team to organise and participate in a number of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) activities aimed at arousing interest and encouraging the next generation of young people to think about science and engineering as career options.

This wide range of projects and activities has provided me with the opportunity to widen my skill-set, gain valuable experience in different roles and develop myself personally and professionally. Some of the activities I was involved in were the Big Bang Fair in Birmingham and helping a school team from Aquinas in Belfast to develop a model Formula One car and finish forth in the UK competition in their first year entered - a great achievement.

I am currently working on the redesign of a gas-powered launcher that Thales uses during trials of new missiles instead of a rocket motor. I have been given extra responsibility throughout the design process and this is proving extremely interesting, engaging, and most importantly, challenging.

In the future, I aim to achieve chartered engineer status with IMechE and become an expert in the field of aerodynamics. My job role will help me gain a wide breadth of experience in subsonic and supersonic aerodynamics, working on applications as diverse as ground vehicles, helicopters and missiles up to Mach 3.5. 

Some advice I would give to other students applying for graduate positions would be to get as much knowledge of their chosen field as possible. It is also important to revise relevant material from your degree prior to your interview to ensure you can answer any technical questions. From personal experience, mock assessment centres and interview practice provided by the university and visiting companies proved to be invaluable.