Dr Nicky Eshtiaghi MIEAust and Timothy Dunlop MIEAust were honoured at the Engineers Australia Leading Minds Awards Dinner as the 2015 Victorian Professional Engineer and Young Victorian Professional Engineer of the Year respectively.
These awards are designed to recognise those who contribute to the community and profession through innovation, leadership, ingenuity and creativity. Judged by a panel of engineering leaders, the awards received a high calibre of applicants, who all demonstrated outstanding engineering achievements.
As recipients of the Victorian Awards, Dr Eshtiaghi and Mr Dunlop will be entered into Engineers Australia’s National Awards be announced in November of this year, with finalists from across the country in the running.
Find out more about the award recipients:
2015 Victorian Professional Engineer of the Year
Dr Nicky Eshtiaghi earned 1st-class honours in her Bachelor of Chemical Engineering at Amirkbar University, Iran. After six years industry experience, she was awarded a prestige Australian Government International Postgraduate Research Scholarship and Monash Top-up Graduate Scholarship to pursue her PhD.
In 2010, she received her PhD in Chemical Engineering from Monash University and appointed as a lecturer in the School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering of RMIT University. Then in 2014, she was promoted to senior lecturer.
Dr Eshtiahi has co-authored 80 journal / conference papers and is currently the Chair of the Engineers Australia and IChemE Joint Victorian Chemical Engineering Committee (JVCEC).
2015 Young Victorian Professional Engineer of the Year
Tim Dunlop is a project manager and civil engineer with 10 years' experience in the design, construction and project management of infrastructure projects throughout Australia, notably the Australian Pacific Liquefied Natural Gas Project in Gladstone QLD and the World Bank funded Lihir Island Ring Road Project in PNG.
Locally Tim has also worked to realise significant projects to the Bendigo Region, including the Calder Freeway duplication (Kyneton to Ravenswood), Ulumbarra Theatre Streetscape Project, Bendigo Airport Whole Water Cycle Management Project and is currently overseeing the Radius Disability Services move to the Morley Johnson Building in the heart of Bendigo.
Furthermore, as a strong supporter of regional communities, Tim is the Managing Director of Regional Management Group, the Chair of the Engineers Australia Bendigo Regional Group and a member of La Trobe University Engineering Course Advisory Committee.
Nicky and Tim are looking forward to promoting STEM to the wider community and representing the profession in their role as award recipients over the coming months.