Women in Engineering: Katherine Alling

With a passion for engineering and problem solving, Katherine Alling has devoted her life to study chemical engineering. She’s only been working in the hydrogen industry since the beginning of last year, but she has already made her mark here at Nel.

Katherine has a mind focused on detecting and solving problems, so working with manufacturing has turned out to be a perfect fit for her. It’s a fast-paced environment with new and unique challenges waiting every day.

Joining Nel has given her the opportunity to further refine her skills while also working on the thing she is passionate about: renewables.  For example, the new plating process she is working on developing right now.  Katherine has been a part of the process from the initial testing to the planning of the pilot trial. With Katherine’s knowledge and experience, we will hopefully see this new process integrated into manufacturing, and further improve the new process up to full scale!

And this is just a small part of what Katherine has managed to be a part of in her year and a half at Nel. It’s fair to say that she is a person who thrives on having a lot on her plate. She is also working with transitioning a new MW stack into manufacturing. Katherine has gone through countless drafts of instructions for the building and testing, giving us the chance to expand our understanding and come up with new and better ways to do things.

As a woman in engineering, Katherine feels she has been very fortunate – she hasn’t faced many challenges pertaining to that in her career. She says times are changing and it’s becoming easier for women to pursue STEM fields. Katherine is also fortunate to have been part of organizations with diversity in management and in engineering positions. She thinks this has a positive effect on the culture of a school or workplace and makes it easier for women in the organization.

Her advice would be:

“Do what excites you! Don’t let anything stop you from pursuing the things you love.” 

Katherine is clear in her stance: as the use of renewable energy grows worldwide, the role of hydrogen will play an important part and will have to grow in tandem.