Shift the needle on diversity in science and engineering

With engineering as pale and male as ever, increasing diversity across science and technology is a moral and economic necessity, says Chi Onwurah.

Thirty-four years ago, almost to the day, I walked into Imperial College London as a 19-year-old undergraduate studying electrical and electronic engineering.

That first day was spent in a lecture theatre as part of a group that was overwhelmingly white, male and privately educated, learning ‘our’ college song. The atmosphere, I now recognise, was that of a public-school debating society.