International Women in Engineering Day: Five Leaders Making a Difference
Every year on June 23, International Women in Engineering Day, the engineering world pauses to recognize something the AEC industry still doesn't say out loud enough.
Women are still under represented in engineering, construction, and AEC at every level; from entry-level roles to firm leadership. Roughly 14% of the engineering workforce is female. In construction, it's closer to 10%.
Those numbers have moved slowly, over decades because of women who chose this industry anyway. Who stayed even when the culture made it hard. Who held doors open behind them so the next person had a slightly easier path.
Building Connections, Twining’s video podcast, releases its first-ever in-person live panel episode, filmed before alive audience in Long Beach, California, featuring five women at every stage of an AEC career.
Why the AEC Industry Still Needs This Conversation
The statistics are familiar. The frustration behind them is not talked about nearly enough.
~14% of the U.S. engineering workforce is female
~10% of the construction workforce is female
25–30% of architecture school graduates are women — yet fewer than 20% make principal
Women aren't absent from the AEC pipeline. They're being lost somewhere between entry and leadership, and that gap isn't a coincidence. It's the cumulative result of workplaces that weren't designed for them, cultures that require extra proof before trust is extended, and a visibility problem: when you can't see yourself in leadership, it's harder to believe you belong there.
The companies and firms closing that gap aren't doing it with slogans. They're doing it with hiring decisions, mentorship structures, and the willingness to put women in rooms where they can be seen and heard. Like this one.
Meet the Panel
Building Connections brought together five women whose careers span every corner of AEC — from early-career infrastructure work at one of the nation's busiest ports, to founding an environmental construction firm and a nonprofit that gets girls into construction. Moderated by Stacy Williams, Director of Client Services at Twining, Inc.
Yiwen Bu, PhD, PE, LEEDAP
VP Concrete Insight · Twining, Inc.
A forensic concrete expert and technical powerhouse, Dr. Bu leads Twining's concrete materials laboratory. Her work spans durability analysis, forensic evaluations, and complex construction investigations.
Robin Thorne
Founder & CEO · CTI Environmental, Inc.
Robin founded CTI Environmental in 2009 and hasn't slowed down since. Her firm has managed projects forSouthern California Edison, the City of Los Angeles, and the Bureau of Prisons.She's also the founder of DemoChicks — a nonprofit dedicated to introducinggirls to STEM and the construction trades. Robin is what advocacy at scale looks like.
Margaux Burkholder, SE
Principal · Walter P Moore
A licensed structural engineer at one of AEC's most respected firms, Margaux is known for pairing technical precision with intentional advocacy. She doesn't just engineer structures, she's actively working to engineer a more equitable industry.
Claudia Saddik
Civil Engineering Assistant · Port of Long Beach
A Long Beach native and CSULBCivil Engineering alumna (Class of 2021), Claudia brings the most current perspective on what it's like to enter AEC right now. She supports complex infrastructure projects at one of the nation's busiest ports and she sees every day, both how much has changed and how much hasn't.
Shelly Anghera, PhD
Principal Scientist & Vice President · Moffatt & Nichol
Dr. Anghera holds a doctorate in environmental health sciences and ecotoxicology from UCLA and is a nationally recognized expert in dredged material management and sediment science. She's the kind of expert who gets called in when the problem is hard, and she's built that reputation in an industry that historically underinvested in people like her.
What They Talked About
This wasn't a scripted panel. It was a real conversation with a live audience, and five women willing to behonest about their industry. Here's what they covered.
Career Journeys: How They Got Here
Being a Woman in a Male-Dominated Field
Leadership and Advocacy — What It Actually Looks Like
The Future of Women in AEC
Why Conversations Like This One Matter
Panels don't change industries by themselves. But visibility does something specific: it makes the invisible visible. It gives early-career women a real, specific, documented example of what a career in AEC can look like.
It also holds the industry accountable. When women with decades of experience sit in a room and name what's hard and what's working, it becomes harder to look away. That's what this episode does. And it's why Building Connections made it their first-ever live panel.
Watch the full episode here
What is the Building Connections podcast?
Building Connections is a video podcast series produced byTwining, Inc., a testing, inspection, and engineering firm with over 125 years in the AEC industry. Each episode features candid, unscripted conversations with AEC leaders, engineers, and innovators. New episodes release monthly onYouTube.
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