Inventive Podcast

Meet inspiring and diverse engineers whose ground-breaking work is making a difference and inspiring writers who create compelling fiction.

Engineering is at the heart of being human: for thousands of years we’ve been inventing things, from stone tools through to modern smartphones, We’ve created technology that have made our lives better and have also radically changed society. And yet as a subject Engineering is strangely hidden in plain sight. Inventive explores new ways of telling Engineering's story by mixing fact and fiction. Through this, we inspire our listeners about the contribution engineering makes.

Host: Professor Trevor Cox, Acoustical Engineer

Producers: Anna Scott-Brown and Adam Fowler

Publicity: Gill Davies

Visuals and animations: Annabeth Robinson

Curriculum materials associated with this podcast will appear on the Nustem website at Northumbria University.

Overtone Productions for University of Salford, UK

Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Follow on

Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app

Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episodes

Episode 12: Trevor Cox

Ruth Amos visits the Acoustic Laboratories at the University of Salford . She gets to experience the test chambers with their extreme acoustics, from the oppressive silence of the anechoic chamber, to the booming reverberation chamber. So this is an Inventive episode with a twist, as previous guest Ruth Amos turns interviewer, and we hear about the acoustical engineering done by Inventive's normal host Professor Trevor Cox. Inventive Podcast is all about mixing fact and fiction, as it features g...

Jun 27, 2022•55 min•Season 3Ep. 1

Episode 11: Jack Haworth

Put your headphones on and take some time out to listen to this episode. Your ears are in for a treat! Thanks to Adam at Overtone Productions, we're bringing you outstanding sound design in the final episode of this series. Inventive Podcast is all about mixing fact and fiction - featuring engineers whose work is transforming the world we live in and award-winning writers who transform their stories. We have another first for you in this episode as we feature sublime poetry from Katrina Porteous...

Dec 05, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 5

Episode 10: Larissa Suzuki

A fascinating insight into how AI will influence how cities operate in the future and the ethics of collecting big data. Larissa Suzuki is a polymath – she's a computer scientist, engineer, entrepreneur, writer, inventor, and philanthropist. She was awarded the Engineer of the Year at the Engineering Talent Awards 2021 and the Royal Engineering Society's Rooke Award and she made The Guardian's Top 50 Women in Engineering. She has one foot in academia and the other in industry – she's an Honorary...

Nov 17, 2021•59 min•Season 2Ep. 4

Episode 9: Enass Abo-Hamed and Manjot Chana

How can we create carbon-free energy? The future is hydrogen. As Glasgow hosts the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference , engineer and activist Enass Abo-Hamed and systems integration engineer Manjot Chana from renewable energy company H2GO chat to Trevor Cox about their groundbreaking plans to help save the planet. The carbon we produce in heavy industries, aviation and energy supply emits pollutants. 1.2 billion people in the world don't have control over energy supplies – they can't get it at t...

Oct 31, 2021•56 min•Season 2Ep. 3

Episode 8: Josh Macabuag

This episode of Inventive Podcast is an exciting insight into a profession we only get a glimpse of in news reports, through the eyes of an engineer who wants to make a positive impact on the world. Disaster Risk Engineer Josh Macabuag been at the scene of major natural disasters around the world. He was part of the SARAID (Search and Rescue Assistance in Disasters) relief team at the tsunami Japan in 2011, the earthquake in Nepal in 2015 and, most recently, the earthquake in Haiti in 2021. As a...

Oct 18, 2021•56 min•Season 2Ep. 2

Episode 7: Sian Cleaver

Join us for a brand new series of Inventive Podcast. We're launching in World Space Week - this year, it's all about celebrating Women in Space - so who better to launch our new series than Spacecraft Engineer Sian Cleaver! Sian chats to Trevor Cox about her work on the Orion European Service Module for NASA's Orion spacecraft, built to take humans farther into space than ever before. Being an astronaut or working in a space-related job has always been on Sian's mind. When she was a child, her d...

Oct 04, 2021•54 min•Season 2Ep. 1

Episode 6: Ruth Amos

Inventor and Engineer Ruth Amos has a fantastic job! She runs Youtube Channel ‘Kids Invent Stuff’ where children get the chance to have their invention ideas built by Ruth and her friend Shawn. They’ve built some amazing stuff! A bike that feeds you cake, a three-storey bath, an electric dog car - farting staircase anyone? Ruth’s idea behind the channel was that she wanted children from all backgrounds to have the opportunity to see their ideas made. She didn’t go to university, her way into eng...

Jul 26, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 6

Episode 5: Greg Bowie

Manufacturing engineer Greg Bowie uses science to make stuff that heals broken bones. The material he works with has something in common with the network of pipes at the bottom of the ocean that carries the internet around the world and Greg himself has something in common with former US President Barack Obama. There's a Neo-fascist government in America in writer Emma Newman's short story, influenced by Greg's work, focusing on espionage and a tribute to people who go up against tyrants, Emma i...

Jul 21, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 5

Episode 4: Askwar Hilonga

Chemical engineer Askwar Hilonga wants to be a billionaire - by saving a billion lives. Growing up in rural Tanzania, life was hard. His mother and father didn't go to school and he suffered from water-borne diseases throughout his childhood from drinking contaminated water. Askwar wanted to use his education to help his community and, using his expertise in nanotechnology, he has developed a water filtration system and a network of water purification stations around Africa. He tells his story t...

Jul 14, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 4

Episode 3: Sophie Robinson

Trevor meets aerospace engineer Sophie Robinson, who's working on groundbreaking eVTOL, electric vertical take-off and landing, aircraft that will change the way we travel in the future. Writer Tony White's inspirational story 'The Hotwells Cold Water Swimming Club’ captures perfectly what Sophie gets up to in her spare time - she’s a self-confessed mermaid! - and the ethical dilemmas she has faced at work. What did you think of the episode? We're evaluating Inventive. Please fill in our listene...

Jul 07, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 3

Episode 2: Roma Agrawal

In the second episode of Inventive Podcast, Trevor meets award-winning structural engineer Roma Agrawal MBE - Mega Badass Engineer – that's what Roma says! She designed the foundations of London's iconic skyscraper The Shard and everything from train stations to footbridges. Roma's book 'Built' uncovers the stories behind iconic structures and her children's book 'How Was That Built?: The Stories Behind Awesome Structures' is available from September 2021. Roma's love of concrete influenced writ...

Jun 30, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 2

Episode 1: Shrouk El-Attar

In the first episode of the brand-new Inventive Podcast series, Professor Trevor Cox meets Electronics Engineer Shrouk El-Attar, refugee and campaigner for LGBT rights , recently awarded the Institution of Engineering and Technology's Young Woman Engineer of 2021 for her work in femtech, female-focused technology designed to support women’s health. We commissioned a piece by award-winning writer and poet Tania Hershman based on Shrouk's inspirational interview. Tania's hybrid work Human Being As...

Jun 14, 2021•49 min•Season 1Ep. 1

Introducing The Inventive Podcast

Welcome to Inventive, which is launching in June 2021. On Inventive you'll meet inspirational and diverse engineers whose ground-breaking work is making a difference. Inspired by the engineers and their engineering, you'll also hear tales by award-winning fiction writers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 02, 2021•1 min

For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android

Open in Metacast