Trustees

Chairman

Modupe Williams

BEng (Hons), MBA, C.Eng MICE, MAPM RPP, FSLIE

Modupe is a Chartered Project Professional and Chartered Civil Engineer with extensive experience in delivering projects in complex multicultural urban settings. His professional experience combines policy formulation with the planning and delivery of major infrastructure projects in the UK and  Sierra Leone.

He has over 35 years of experience in providing strategic support to government agencies, city authorities and development corporations on planning policy, transformational change and promoting initiatives to address climate change by creating more sustainable cities. This includes the initiation and delivery of major infrastructure projects directly linked to the strategic economic development of cities, such as the Heathrow Terminal 5 airport expansion, Crossrail.  He is currently leading the promotion of a Cable Car as a clean mass transit solution for the city of Freetown.

He is the co-founder of Engineers for Change (Sierra Leone) and the Hastings Group. He is an approved Mentor under the Institution of Civil Engineers Mentor Supported Training scheme and provides mentor support to engineers in Sierra Leone pursuing UK Professional Engineering qualifications. He has delivered projects that provide technical capacity support to the University and other government institutions in Sierra Leone.  He has presented papers at international conferences and currently delivers lectures to postgraduate students at universities in the UK and the USA on related Urban Development issues in Sierra Leone.

Secretary

Mariama Whitmore

Mariama is a Senior Commercial Manager with Transport for London specialising in pre and post contract management and administration. She has over 25 years of extensive operational and administrative experience in public transport operations, infrastructure and logistics, and has worked in both surface and underground transportation.

She is currently the Lead Commercial Manager for the Capacity & Optimisation Portfolio at London Underground, overseeing the procurement and commercial management of a number of programmes including civil works, signal and controls systems for the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines. As a Senior Procurement Manager at London Underground, Mariama was responsible for the procurement function of one of the company’s investment programmes, focusing on strategic purchasing activities including contract awards for the Victoria Line Mid-Tunnel Ventilation Shafts (cc £25m) and Sub Surface lines power upgrade packages (cc £120m). Mariama has provided planning, logistics and the procurement of materials and spares for the maintenance of trains, signals and associated assets.

Mariama’s human resource experience has been gained through the process of negotiating and recruiting professional service providers under performance management and appraisal frameworks. She is also an accredited workplace mediator for TfL.

Relationship Building SL Committee Chair

Trudy Morgan

BEng (Hons), MBA, C.Eng, MICE, MSLIE, MAPM

Trudy Morgan is a UK Chartered Engineering and is the Institution of Civil Engineer’s International Representative in Sierra Leone. Trudy has an MBA from the Cranfield School of Management well as BEng (Hons) from Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. Trudy is a Member of the UK Association of Project Managers. She sits on the Council of the Sierra Leone Institution of Engineers and is on the board of the Professional Engineers’ Registration Council.

She is currently working in Sierra Leone as the Programme Director on the $70M design and construction of the new Hilton Cape Sierra Hotel in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Whilst in Sierra Leone, she has also worked with the World Bank in developing a programme to address the challenges of inadequate of the urban services provision within the capital, Freetown and more recently on the Schools Reopening Programme in response to the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone.

She is a Presidential nominee to the National Privatisation Commission and has been working with the Ministry of Finance to leverage the recently created Skills Development Fund for young engineers. Trudy is representing Engineers for Change in Sierra Leone and is jointly for building relationships for EfCSL in Sierra Leone.

Treasurer

Henry Smith

Henry Smith graduated with a BEng (Hons) from Fourah Bay College and an MSc in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot Watt University. He is a chartered engineer with over thirty years of engineering experience in various countries in Africa and Europe.

He has electrical design and installation experience from working in Sierra Leone and Nigeria where he was responsible for major projects. He later joined Schlumberger, a major service company to Oil and Gas companies where he worked internationally for twenty years in various positions.

Since 2008, Henry has been working as a Director/Petroleum engineer, interpreting oil well data and training petroleum engineers in various countries.

Relationship Building (UK)

Rowland Gordon

BEng (Hon), C.Eng, MSc, MSLIE, FCIHT

Rowland has a BEng (Hons) Civil Engineering degree from the University of Sierra Leone and an MSc degree in Urban Civil Engineering from South Bank University.

Rowland has a broad range of experience in highways and wider engineering activity and currently manages a team of Highway Maintenance, Structures and Drainage Engineers working on a diverse range of projects.

Rowland is a Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation, and a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Sierra Leone Institution of Engineers and is involved with a number of charities promoting education and in particular engineering studies.

Trustee

Ambassador Yvette Stevens

Ing Stevens studied at the Moscow Energy and Power Institute and the Imperial College of Science and Technology, where she gained a double Masters’ degree before returning to Freetown in 1974 as Sierra Leone first female Engineer.  She taught Engineering at Fourah Bay College from 1974 to 1980, during which time she worked for As Lecturer, Department of Electrical Engineering, Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, teaching courses in electrical power systems.   During this period, she also worked as a consultant for Mechanical, Electrical and Management Consultants (MEMCON) and for Electrical Consultants and Associates (ECA), both in Freetown. 

She joined the United Nations (International Labour Organization) as a Technology Expert in 1980, on a project which a project that was undertaken in three countries in Africa (Kenya, Ghana and Sierra Leone).   Under this project, she identified and developed technological options to save energy, time and labour.  The technologies introduced included improved stoves for cooking and food processing and mechanized equipment for cassava and palm-oil processing.

While at ILO, she also undertook studies and analyses of the uses and possible applications of new technologies in traditional activities in developing countries.  These included: uses of photovoltaic, satellite communications, new construction materials; microelectronics and microprocessors, and satellite remote sensing. She worked for various United Nations entities over a period 28 years, during which, she paid particular attention to the development and application of new technologies, including solar technology for development.

After her retirement from the United Nations, she returned to Sierra Leone to serve as Energy Policy Adviser to the Minister of Energy and Water Resources, from 2009 to 2012.  In this capacity, she spearheaded the drawing up of Sierra Leone first Energy Policy and Strategy.  She worked with the Law Department to draw up the Sierra Leone Energy and Water Regulation Act as well as the National Electricity Act, which were passed in Parliament in 2011. 

She was also instrumental in setting up the Energy Directorate within the Ministry and in initiating solar energy projects in the country. She was named Sierra Leone first Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva in 2012.

Research, Training and Publications Committee Chair

Dr Reginald Leopold

PhD, MSc, MSc, BEng (Hons), PE (France), CEng, MCIWEM

Dr Reg Leopold is a Chartered Civil, Water and Environmental Engineer with over 30 years experience in the Consulting, Construction and Mining industries, having also served as Lecturer at Fourah Bay College (FBC), University of Sierra Leone, and as a Guest Lecturer at the Department of Civil Engineering of his Doctoral Alma Mater the University of Newcastle where his pioneering thesis on the development and application of Artificial Intelligence software to the design of Sustainable Water Supply Systems in Developing Countries, was also produced.

He has managed projects in West Africa, North Africa, France and the UK, including flagship joint-ventures in Water Supply & Sanitation, Environmental & Socio-Economic Impact Assessments, Air Quality and Noise, Rail, Roads, Highways &Transportation, and Marine (Aids-to-Navigation ) engineering.

Following his undergraduate BEng (Hons) studies at FBC, Reg proceeded to France where in Toulouse, he obtained with distinction an MSc in Water Treatment & Supply Engineering, and a subsequent MSc in Applied Ichthyology & Environmental Engineering from ENSA-INP and INSA-UPS, respectively.

Dr Leopold is an accredited Professional Engineer in France (La Fondation de l’Eau – Institut de l’Eau) and fully bilingual in French and English. He has provided pivotal advice to the sub-regional federation of engineering organisations whose membership is predominantly Francophone and Anglophone countries, on optional pathways leading to the development of a framework towards the harmonisation of engineering education, professional accreditation and international mobility, as considered in an article presented to UNESCO’s 7th Edition of Africa Engineering Week Conference in October 2021.