Growing up in the Caribbean at a time when the internet was slowly (remember dial up internet?) and I emphasize the word slowly entering our mainstream lives, I had never seen a female engineer, nor could I conceptualize what one looked like. Deep down, I’ve always known that I wanted to be an engineer even though I may not have fully known exactly what they did besides creating solutions for things that may not work well or may not exist.
Although I had never seen a female engineer before, I knew they existed, but I always wondered, “Would I be able to see one that looked like me?” That was the rare unicorn that I struggled to find while growing up. Since I didn’t find that unicorn, I decided that I would be that role model for other girls in the Caribbean and different parts of the world. They would have a female engineer to look up to, who looks like them.
My name is Sanya Mathura, and I am the CEO & Founder of Strategic Reliability Solutions Ltd based in the beautiful Caribbean island of Trinidad & Tobago. I hold my BSc in Electrical & Computer Engineering and my MSc in Engineering Asset Management, both from the University of the West Indies. I was the first person in the Caribbean to attain the ICML MLE (International Council of Machinery Lubrication, Machinery Lubrication Engineer) certification, the first female in the world to achieve the ICML VIM & VPR badges and again the first female in the world to achieve the Mobius Institute Field Lubrication CAT I certification. Being the first to achieve such accomplishments has really helped me to break down some of the barriers women face in this field and help inspire them to accomplish their dreams in this area.
Recently, I also became a registered engineer in Trinidad and Tobago. However, they weren’t quite sure which of the engineering boxes that I fit into. So, the Board of Engineering of Trinidad & Tobago created a new segment, just for me called, “Machinery Lubricant Engineer”. Needless to say, I am the first and the only registered Machinery Lubricant Engineer in the country but certainly not the last. I’m extremely elated that I was able to help create this new specialization so others can also join while we help to build our country.
I sit on multiple boards for the areas of machinery lubrication including Precision Lubrication Magazine, Reliable Magazine, STLE (Society of Tribologists & Lubrication Engineers) Digital TLT editor and I’m a columnist for Equipment Today magazine. I’ve authored a few technical books; “Lubrication Degradation Mechanisms, A Complete Guide”, “Lubrication Degradation – Getting into the Root Causes” co-authored with Bob Latino of Prelical Solutions LLC, “Machinery Lubrication Technician (MLT) I & II Certification Exam Guide” coauthored with Michael Holloway of 5th Order Industry LLC, "Preventing Turbomachinery ‘Cholesterol’ – The Story of Varnish” coauthored with Greg Livingstone. I am also the series editor for the books, Empowering Women in STEM – Personal Stories and Career Journeys from Around the World and Empowering Women in STEM – Working Together to Inspire the Future (with a couple more books on the way).
I’ve always been a strong advocate for women in STEM especially because it was one area of my life that felt a bit incomplete while I was growing up due to the lack of representation of female engineers. I got offered the opportunity to spread this advocacy at a global level when CRC Press asked me to be the editor for their book series called, “Empowering women in STEM”. With these books, we are able to showcase to the world some challenges that women face in male populated environments and how they were able to overcome it. One of the areas that we often struggle with as a society is awareness.
In many of these male populated environments, they’ve never had to work with females before, so some of them are not sure about approaching certain situations. This is why we need to help share more of these stories! The content covered in these books are not only guides for women who may be facing similar situations but for men to understand what their daughters, sisters, mothers, or wives may have to face daily. This helps to raise the awareness level for everyone involved!
It is my mission to help bring more awareness to ways we can encourage more women into STEM related fields and how we can keep them in these fields. Quite often, they may leave the field completely and we end up losing a valuable resource who could have solved a critical issue. We simply cannot sit by and allow our women to leave these industries as they can be responsible for transforming it alongside our male colleagues as we’re all in this together. We need to work together to ensure that we make the changes today for our upcoming generations whether it’s breaking down the barriers so that they don’t have to face those or nurturing the environment, so it becomes more conducive to evolution. We have the power today to shape and pioneer the future for the next generation.
Check out this article in the Empowering Women in Industry Digital Magazine.
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