Lady with the Iron Ring: An Engineer’s Memoir of Hope, Luck and Success

Lady with the Iron Ring: An Engineer’s Memoir of Hope, Luck and Success

It was a shock to the University of British Columbia (UBC) Engineering Undergraduate Society that the first-year class of 1974 had 14 women. Up to then, first year was 100 percent male or tainted by one or two females, with their graduation highly speculative. In the quagmire of the upcoming…

Support OILWOMAN Magazine

Please Log In to view this content.

Not a subscriber? Please Subscribe here for unlimited access.

Author profile

Nattalia Lea’s grandfather emigrated to Canada from China in 1897. Lea became the first woman to graduate from the University of British Columbia with a bio-resources engineering degree in 1978, in an era when less than 0.5 percent of Canadian professional engineers were women. Her memoir captures the essence of being a female, visible minority engineer and how this working-class woman broke into the white, male engineering profession – with no mentors or role models. Photo courtesy of Jana Miko.

Related posts