Fire Safety Engineer
Name: Sarah Higginson
Career stage: Senior - 10+ years' experience
Working: Office
High School Subjects: Studied in the UK so didn't do HSC but assuming that the equivalent is A Levels - studied Maths, further Maths, Physics, Design & Technology, Geography, General Studies
Favourite: Maths. I love patterns and problems
Further study: University
where and what: University of Edinburgh - structural and fire safety engineering
"I entered junior robot wars in high school with a robot called 'Retiarii', which is Latin for 'net fighters', because we had this huge net on a robot that would capture our opponents. They would tend to get stuck on the net and burn out their motors trying to escape."
the inside scoop…
What does a Fire safety engineer actually do? I work with architects to help them achieve their visions whilst making sure that people remain safe in a fire.
What does a day in your life at work look like? Last Thursday is a great example of a typical day. I started in the office and did a technical design review with some of my colleagues for a university project I'm working on. It has a beautiful big atrium space and we were working out how we could adjust the louvres for the architects to be all on one side of the building. This is tricky because we need the louvres to vent smoke out of the building but if the openings are all on one side then wind may push it all back in making it difficult for people to escape. Next up was a familiarisation tour at 50 Martin Place in Sydney City Centre. This building is stunning with lots of heritage components. The facilities manager took me through all his 'alice in wonderland' doors where we were crawling through various spaces to have a look at every nook and cranny in the building, such fun finding out all the secrets of the bank including all the haunted tales! After working on a report in the afternoon I headed over to Allianz Stadium with a colleague from the pedestrian planning team. We do evacuation modelling for all the concerts at the stadium and we go and film people leaving so we can map their movement against our model.
What's the best part of your job? Definitely walking around all the projects I've worked on. One of my favourite projects to date has been the Sydney Football Stadium and sitting at the opening game with the whole crowd cheering was such a special moment to know that I've contributed to such an iconic building.
What made you realise construction could be for you? A friend and I asked our technology teacher at school whether we could enter robot wars when we were 13. We expected him to laugh but he nodded excitedly and said 'I'll just go and get the forms'. This was such a fantastic experience - we entered junior robot wars for the next few years and we were always the only all girls team present. Our robot was called 'Retiarii' which is Latin for net fighters because we had this huge net on a robot that would capture our opponents. They would tend to get stuck on the net and burn out their motors trying to escape. We continued to enter loads of really cool techonology competitions which meant I was exposed to this huge world of engineering all throughout school. It seemed like such a natural progression to step into the world of engineering.
Who has inspired you in your career Two people really jump out.
1. Professor Jose Torero. Jose was my uni professor and he's a world renowned fire specialist. People come to him with cases that can't be solved so he works on the most interesting projects. He has such respect for the legends in the industry, particularly Margaret Law. Margaret was one of the 'founders' of fire engineering and Jose talks so passionately about how exceptional she was, including how she won the Society of Fire Protection 'man of the year' award. I really love hearing how a male world leader in his field talks with such respect about his role model who's a female. Jose is an incredible speaker and teacher, his lectures used to be on a Monday morning at 9am where he would always have flown in from some other country and the entire lecture theatre would be full with people sitting in the aisles just to listen to him speak even if they weren't taking his class. Definitely youtube him, he's amazing!
The other inspirational person is 2. Dr Marianne Foley. Marianne was a colleague of mine and taught me everything I know about consulting as a fire engineer. She's particularly great at design work and had this way of bringing elegant simple solutions to the most complex problems.
Tell us about your journey starting a family whilst working in construction. This has been tough, much tougher than I expected! I thought I'm this kick arse strong woman who can absolutely do it all but I have two young kids under two years old and I have no family in Australia so it's just my husband and I who are both engineers looking after our little family. It's been a tough ride but taking it day by day. There's a lot of expectation that when it's tough it should be the mother who stays to look after the kids but I believe that my career is just as important as my husband's and that we have a united team when it comes to parenting so we're both doing it all.
What would you tell your high school self about working in construction? People are absolutely lovely! Generally everyone's working towards the same goal and just want to be part of a team building these beautiful projects. You can have your own style of working and don't need to mimic anyone else's. I thought I'd have to be this super tough person particularly on site, ready to fluff up my feathers and tell people no. In reality it's absolutely great to be the smiley, lovely, girly person. Everyone takes you just as seriously as long as you know what you're talking about, are responsive and work hard.
Sarah is open to engaging further via: Mentoring a student.
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