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Wednesday 30 June 2021
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Dr Cristiana Pace, a Coventry University Visiting Fellow who successfully completed her PhD within the Centre for Business in Society (CBiS), has been awarded a place in the UK’s Top 50 Women in Engineering (WE50) for 2021 by The Women’s Engineering Society, in association with The Guardian newspaper and Assystem.
The WE50 ‘Engineering Heroes’ awards highlights the wealth of female contribution within engineering disciplines and celebrates women like Cristiana who are tackling global challenges and helping organisations and communities through their work in engineering.
As well as working as a performance engineer in Gran Turismo (GT) and at the 24 hours of Le Mans, Cristiana was also the first woman to work alongside the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) technical department in Formula One (F1) as a data analyst, from 2004-2008.
Whilst studying at Coventry University, Cristiana’s research focused on sustainability, business and strategic management, where she examined the sustainability transition of the motorsport sector. She joined CBiS from Williams Advanced Engineering, a division of Williams F1, where she acted as a Business Development Manager for Motorsport programmes, including Williams’ supply of batteries to the then newly created Formula E.
In 2018, alongside her postgraduate research, Cristiana founded Enovation Consulting, a business that supports the motorsport and sport industry with management sustainability consultancy and community projects involving educational aspects of sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), nationally and internationally. Enovation Consulting is currently working with several stakeholders in the motorsport ecosystem and automotive sector.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, together with Alpine Formula One Team, One Group Engineering and Oxford University Hospital, Enovation Consulting helped design and produce The Oxford Box, a bespoke airways management device to help keep the medical staff safe during the intubation process. Computational Fluid Dynamics was applied to modelling the box to reflect common practice in motorsport.
Cristiana successfully completed her PhD in September 2019, and in 2020 she was appointed Visiting Fellow at Coventry University in CBiS.
I am delighted to have been selected for the Top 50 Women in Engineering Awards. This year has been an unprecedented one highlighting many challenges in an ever-changing world. I hope that each great story behind the recipients of this award will inspire more people from diverse backgrounds to embrace an engineering career and be part of the solution.
Cristiana Pace, Founder of Enovation Consulting
As her Director of Studies, it was a pleasure to work alongside and support Cristiana for the duration of her PhD with my co-supervisors Dr David Jarvis of Coventry University and Professor Mark Jenkins of Cranfield University. It comes as no surprise to us that following her PhD completion at Coventry University, Cristiana continues to make a significant impact on society with her talent, hard work, dedication and tenacity. We have no doubts that her research, great achievements and outstanding contributions to the motorsport industry will continue to impact and mould the future of the sector.
Professor Nick Henry, Centre for Business in Society
Coventry University's Professor Elena Gaura was also highlighted in the Top 50 Women in Engineering ‘Engineering Heroes’ awards for her contribution to the sector. Elena currently directs both the Fluid and Complex Systems and the Computational Science and Mathematical Modelling research centres.
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