Diane Mather was awarded the Women In Tunnelling Award Outstanding Achievement Award by the Australian Tunnelling Society, recognising extensive contributions to tunnelling and mining in Australia and internationally.

The award acknowledged Diane for her technical knowledge covering tunnelling and geotechnical issues, through to a management of tunnel designs and construction.

Diane said she was thrilled when she received the award at the Australasian Tunnelling Conference, particularly given the esteemed women also nominated.

“It’s quite amazing, all together there were 25 nominees and quite a lot of those ladies I do know and I’ve worked with. They’re all pretty outstanding candidates and there are a lot of achievements there so it’s very nice to be recognised by such a high calibre of people as well,” she said.

The immediate past-Chair of the Queensland division of the ATS and design manager for ARTC, she is working on the Inland Rail project, managing the section of the heavy haul freight line from Gowrie to Helidon which includes a 6.2 km tunnel as well as two smaller tunnels.

The idea of pursing a career in the industry began when Diane was growing up in Cornwall, England.

“The area I grew up in is a mining area and as I grew up there were two working tin mines very close to home—Wheal Jane and South Crofty—and I knew friends of mine whose parents worked there and family friends and it was interesting.

“There are a lot of big features of the mines like engine houses dotted all over the landscape and I was fascinated by how they work.”

With this ambition, Diane was well catered for in Cornwall with the Camborne School of Mines.

“It’s renowned for engineering, mining engineering and earth sciences and that’s what I was interested in,” she said.

“That gave a good foundation in a lot of disciplines and I graduated in 1998 and at that point of time there was a downturn in the mining industry but I was fortunate enough to get a tunnelling job. It was a job on a storm water tunnelling project and that started my career in tunnelling.

“After that I got a graduate job at London Underground and after that I was pretty much there until I moved to Australia. I’ve been involved in tunnelling ever since.”

After an involvement with the British Tunnelling Society, the obvious next step after her move to the Southern Hemisphere was to join the ATS, in addition to becoming a member of the Australian Geotecnical Society.

Becoming connected with the ATS in 2005 started a long-term involvement which the Society also acknowledged as part of her award.

Now in her second term as Chair of the Queensland division, Diane continues to mentor young females in the industry and contribute to the ATS, which she said continually aids her personal development.

“At the technical talks we don’t just talk about tunnel design or tunnel construction. You can learn a lot of things that are not in your area of interest,” she said.

“I’m a mining engineer and I’ve got a good geotechnical and construction background but through my involvement with the ATS and the continued professional development I’ve done I’ve been able to learn about lots of other areas that maybe you wouldn’t get through your day-to-day job learning from people in the industry, particularly the corporate sponsors and suppliers. They want to share and they want to be part of that. That’s interesting and that’s exciting.

“The continuing professional development that we host has probably led the way of the technical societies in Engineers Australia. It’s become inherent in a lot of the project development that we do, we’re fortunate as a society that we have a lot of those contacts in our network.”

Diane said the last 15 years has seen those in the industry broadening their horizons. But she said the need for innovation remains in the tunnelling industry.

“I think a big challenge is sustainability and meeting a lot more sustainability objectives and trying to meet those as sensibility and cost effectively as best we can,” she said.

“There’s a challenge in automation and data management and survey. The mining industry seem to be getting that working a bit more effectively. We’re still doing a lot more manual type work there and I think that needs to change.”

Diane Mather was awarded the Women in Tunnelling Award Outstanding Achievement Award by the ATS in recognition of her extensive contribution to tunnelling and mining in Australia and internationally. This award was kindly sponsored by Bouygues Construction with a financial prize to be used for CPD or educational purposes ONLY. The ATS greatly appreciates Bouygues involvement with this award.