Biomechatronics PhD student featured in #ThisisEngineering campaign

Chris Caulcrick is one of five engineers who appear in a Royal Academy of Engineering campaign aimed at young people.

Chris is currently a Mechanical Engineering PhD researcher at Imperial, based in the Biomechatronics Lab led by Dr Ravi Vaidyanathan. Chris’s work brings together robotics and medicine, focusing on an exo-skeleton system that could be used for rehabilitation of stroke patients.

In a video interview for the campaign, he talks about what drew him to the field of engineering and what he enjoys most about his current research:

"What I love most about what I do is the fact that a lot of my average working week essentially just involves playing around with gadgets, and being given the freedom to innovate and to develop in a space that’s extremely fun, extremely interesting, and at the same time has incredible benefits for people that really need the services that we’re working on.”

Alumnus Charles Burr, co-founder and CEO of boxing wearable Corner, is also featured in the campaign. Charles graduated from the MEng in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial in 2015, and his current work is based on a fourth year student project developed with Dr Ravi Vaidyanathan. As part of the campaign, he explains how he integrated his passion for sports into engineering:

Launched by the Royal Academy of Engineering in collaboration with EngineeringUK and industry partners, the #ThisIsEngineering campaign aims to give more young people from all backgrounds the opportunity to explore how they could follow what they love into a varied and fulfilling engineering career.

Historically, the full breadth of engineering opportunities has not been widely understood or acknowledged, resulting in the perception that a career in engineering is narrow, technical and traditional. The campaign’s goal is to reset the conversation about engineering, tapping into young people’s passions for subjects such as sport, technology and design.