Civil Engineering January-February 2022 | Vol 30 No 1

Prof i le of SA I CE 2022 Pres ident 8 January/February 2022 Civil Engineering M arianne grew up Kerkrade, a small mining town in the south of the Netherlands that went through difficult social and economic times when the mines closed in 1969, when Marianne was just a young girl. Coming from this humble background, Marianne never dreamed of one day obtaining a PhD, or of the significant achievements she has made throughout her career. EARLY LIFE Marianne’s father owned a driving school, which is what sparked her interest in transport. After completing the equiva- lent of O Level examinations, Marianne had hoped to join her father’s driving school business. However, being too young to get her driver’s licence, she in- stead signed up to enter the retail sector. Marianne did not follow through on this and instead made a decision that would lead her to the path she is on today. She opted to return to high school and com- plete her A Levels in order to gain access to transport-related higher education. Being from a small town of around 50 000 people, Marianne did not want to attend a large university where she would be just a number in a system. Instead, she attended an academy (which subsequently became part of the Breda University of Applied Sciences) in Tilburg with just 600 students where she obtained her BSc in Transport Engineering. “It was just one department in a temporary building, but that was actually very welcoming because it wasn’t as formal or daunting as a University of Cape Town (UCT) type of campus,” says Marianne. She went on to work for TNO in Delft, a sister organisation of the CSIR, and completed an MSc in Systems Engineering Policy Analysis through the Marianne Vanderschuren: a president who dares to care On 26 November 2021 SAICE welcomed its 119 th president, Prof. Marianne Vanderschuren. Marianne is only the third female president in SAICE’s history, following in the footsteps of the renowned Dr Allyson Lawless and Prof. Elsabe Kearsley, and members can look forward to ongoing transformation under her leadership. Der Koempel (The Comrade), a mineworker’s statue in Marianne’s hometown, Kerkrade Marianne on holiday in Paris during her student years