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Dr Aakeen Parikh, Research Manager for the Vehicle Futures Hub at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ has been named a Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year.

The award recognises early-career excellence in contributions to engineering and includes a £3,000 prize. Dr Parikh will receive the honour at the RAEng Awards Dinner in London on Wednesday 8 July 2026. 

At the Vehicle Futures Hub, which aims to accelerate innovative vehicle technologies, Dr Parikh’s work supports the transition to cleaner, more sustainable transport. Beyond her role at Imperial, Dr Parikh applies engineering to tackle global challenges in health and equality. She is a founder of The Minazi Impact, a social enterprise developing solutions for women’s health and wellbeing. She also leads on the Sanitary Pad Project in Rwanda, producing reusable sanitary pads from locally sourced waste materials in partnership with grassroots NGO Dufatanye Organisation.

Dr Aakeen Parikh said: “Receiving the Young Engineer of the Year award is an incredible pinch-me moment. I have always believed that engineering has the power to bring necessary innovation to the world, improve lives, develop equitable solutions, and protect our natural environment. Engineers are key to addressing the biggest challenges facing our future and I want to use this platform to highlight the importance of engineering the right solutions.” 

Professor Ricardo Martinez-Botas, Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial said: “I am absolutely delighted to see Aakeen’s achievements recognised at this level. Having followed her development since her undergraduate studies and through her PhD, it is particularly rewarding to see the impact she is now making. Her work, especially her commitment to developing sustainable engineering solutions with real societal benefit, exemplifies the very best of what engineering can achieve. Alongside this, her contributions within the Future Vehicle Hub are helping to shape academia–industry collaboration in future transport. This is a richly deserved recognition and something the entire department can take great pride in.”

Let’s find out more about Aakeen’s award-winning work directly from her:

What motivates you, and how do you choose what problems you try to solve with your work? 

I’m motivated by the deep environmental and social challenges of the future. As a global society, the problems we face are intrinsically connected to each other. Many of these are current and future engineering issues, such as what manufacturing methods we use, the availability of materials or how we can limit carbon emissions.

At the Vehicle Futures Hub, for example, we are looking at what future transport and mobility solutions will look like. Transport accounts for a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions (according to the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report). Many established industries are unable to switch to alternative technologies unless there is both economic viability and strong cohesive spirit. We have exciting new technologies that could transform future society, but they could also impinge on scarce resources.

As engineers designing the future world, we have a responsibility to ensure we sustain our planet and limit our resource consumption. Equally important is ensuring the solutions we design are accessible and equitably available for everyone. These are complex system problems and deeply motivating to resolve. 

How do you make sure that the solutions you develop are designed to fit the needs and experiences of the people who will use them? 

The end user is deeply involved through the design process, which involves obtaining many sources of information, such as ergonomic, anthropometric data, political or social contexts of the design, storyboarding techniques or needs assessments. This is commonly known as “human-centered design approach” or “user-centered design approach”.

Designers also need to be aware what personal biases can influence design decisions. This is why collaborative approaches are often followed, to obtain a deep understanding of the context and assess possible solutions based on what might be regionally available, culturally appropriate and sustainable. My personal experience shows me that it’s important to ask questions and challenge assumptions.  

What are some of the biggest engineering or practical challenges you've encountered when designing for low-resource settings? 

The biggest challenges include communication barriers, design bias, financial constraints and, as expected, resource availability. These are often laid on top of other challenges, such as infrastructure limitations or availability of electricity, which is often intermittent (though, this is now changing)...

What’s needed are engineering solutions that are designed in context to the region, which is usually difficult to do effectively without a systems approach. Without this, individual solutions can often be just band-aids until something better comes along. Engineers carry a marvellous toolbox though, because many of the necessary technologies exist today. That said, issues like lack of clean water, poor health and sanitation, clean energy, and food scarcity continue to prevail. The question remains on how to resolve these issues for many years to come. 

What impact have you seen (or hope to see!) from your projects so far? 

I feel that every project I have had the privilege to be a part of has had an impact, small or large. For example, in 2019, we wanted to address time poverty for women in low-income communities. We developed a battery-powered washing machine that could be charged through solar power, demonstrating that innovative solutions could be used to give back time to women, in regions that were time poor and where women were primarily responsible for clothes washing. When we ran a student consultancy over COVID, we worked with three charities globally which provided engineering support to real challenges, whilst also offering remote engineering internships to ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½. This provided valuable work experience for the ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½, and technical support and innovation for resource-strained non-profit organisations.  

Most recently, I have been working closely with Dufatanye Organization, an NGO in Rwanda, to address period poverty. Sanitary pads in the regional community were prohibitively expensive for girls, who were missing school on their periods. We built a sanitary pad facility enabling reusable sanitary pads to be made in Nyanza, with local resources. We upcycled waste banana fibres to make the absorbent cores of the pads. This project has led to the distribution of 3000 pads to girls and women in the community, and we want to continue to grow it, providing more sanitary pads and building more capacity on the farm. The most exciting next step is growing our waste banana fibre processing facilities. By utilising this abundant waste resource, we can optimise production and also create new revenue streams for farmers.

How has the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial supported your journey? 

The department has been hugely supportive in this journey and I would not be here without the support from everyone who has helped me with all the projects. What I love about Imperial (and this is probably the reason why I keep coming back!) is how much of a community we have and how willing everyone is to help and support. Whenever I have had an idea, I have been supported throughout, such as supervision for DMT or FYP projects, prototyping and testing facilities, or even on expeditions to Rwanda. The list of supporters is too long to name, but I’m grateful to each and everyone of you.  

Dr Parikh completed her PhD in Mechanical Engineering at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½; her undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering were also completed at Imperial in our Department. She previously served as an Innovation Manager at the UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero and is an ambassador for the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. 

The RAEng Engineers Trust Young Engineer of the Year awards, supported by the Worshipful Company of Engineers, recognise outstanding UK-based engineers within ten years of graduating from their first engineering degree (or equivalent). Each award carries a £3,000 prize and is presented at the Academy’s Annual Awards Dinner.