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Caitlin McCall
Website:
'@tillyshillingart
Women in Electricity
Engineering Fabulousness
Civil Engineering in Style
Biography
Through art and design, Caitlin‘s mission is to provide gifts that appeal to and represent the incredibly diverse range of people in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) industries. Women make up less than 35% in these industries, with some industries as low as ~20%. These gifts offer people in STEM another way to represent and celebrate one another’s achievements to support those in the industry. The artwork on the gifts are designed to be fun and represent the creative, positive and inventive people who make up the STEM workforce.
Caitlin’s vision for this work is to increase representation in the STEM industry in order to normalise seeing a diverse team. It’s also to provide people already within the industry appropriately themed items for awards ceremonies, birthdays, graduations, promotions, and generally supporting people to celebrate one another’s achievements.
Her hope is to increase the range of designs to represent new job roles and a wider range of of the incredible people involved in STEM.
inspiration
As an engineer who has been in the STEM industry for over 10 years. Caitlin has seen many of the challenges that a lack of diversity brings. People in STEM affect almost every part of our lives from the phones we use to the cars we drive to the way we purchase things on the Internet to the art we enjoy, and yet many of us are unsure, what engineers, scientists, technologist and mathematicians do. It’s incredibly important to have a range of backgrounds, ethnicities and experiences to ensure we create the best solutions.
Two years ago, Caitlin won a start-up grant with the Prince’s Trust to design and sell items that people with an interest in STEM can purchase for themselves or as a gift. The gifts have designs of women in STEM roles and designs include items they might use in their day job or achievements of historical figures, to raise awareness of their incredible contributions to the world we live in.
Caitlin spends the majority of her time outside of her day job promoting diversity in STEM and has won awards for doing so, including the Women’s Engineering Society’s Top 50 Women in Engineering 2021, and We Are The City’s Rising Star Award.
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Caitlin draws inspiration from her role as an engineer to influence the designs and figures represented. Caitlin works with other designers to realise the designs and prints the designs onto eco-friendly recyclable products, such as cards, posters and tea towels.