Inquisitive engineering

Meet Niamh, an engineer who loves asking questions! Find out how she used her curiosity to help develop the Dyson Airwrap.

When I was a kid, it wasn't clear to me what I wanted to do. I think every week I wanted to do something different from being a hairdresser to a banker to a musician.

One thing that's clear looking back, is that I was always inquisitive. I would always be asking questions, especially to my mum, things like “how does water come out of the tap?, or “how does a phone work?”

Hindsight tells me that the path to engineering was quite clear all along.

It's really exciting with my inquisitive nature, because I can now channel that day-to-day in my job at Dyson. We'll have meetings where we're coming up with ideas of how we can invent things that solve problems and create products that people don't know they want.

An example of this is the Dyson Airwrap, which came out in 2018. It utilizes the Coanda effect, which is an aerodynamics phenomenon to curl and style hair.

We're able to do this without extreme heat - because we've got a glassbead thermistor, which measures the air temperature up to 40 times per second so we can ensure we're not damaging people's hair.

For me, my favourite part of the job is when things come out and I'm able to share them with my family and friends.

For example, the Dyson Airwrap. I worked on it for a year, and I knew my family friends would love it and I couldn't wait to share it with them. I have that same excitement now about the next thing that's coming that I know people are going to love, and I just can't wait for them to see it.