Amy Cui’s participation in the International Young Physicists’ Tournament (IYPT) confirmed one thing: she thrives on the hands-on, practical side of science, which ultimately inspired her to pursue a career as an engineer.

Now a process engineer at Asia Pacific design, engineering & advisory organisation, Aurecon, Amy was a member of the New Zealand team that competed in the 32nd IYPT in Warsaw, Poland. She later earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in chemical and materials engineering from the University of Auckland.

“I enjoy the hands-on aspect of my work – getting out to sites and testing things I’ve had a role in designing, in between working in the office,” says Amy, who mainly focuses on manufacturing and industrial projects from where she is based in Wellington.

Amy joined the New Zealand team for the 2019 tournament, just before the global COVID-19 pandemic led to the event’s cancellation and its replacement by an online version. The tournament resumed in 2021.

“A lot has happened since then,” she reflects, though one memory stands out. It was the day of the photo shoot for all teams. “After our visit to the science museum in Warsaw, we decided to explore the city and got completely sidetracked. If you look at the tournament photo from 2019, you’ll see someone holding the New Zealand flag – but the New Zealand team isn’t there, we were too busy exploring.”

Amy believes her IYPT experience continues to shape her career. One physics concept she would like to teach, and often applies in her work, is pressure drop. “I use fluid pressure drop concepts all the time at work, so it’s fitting. Two of the three problems I presented at IYPT were fluid-related,” she says.

“Pressure drop is the difference in total pressure between two points in a fluid network, caused by frictional losses as a fluid flows through something like a pipe or a tube,” she explains. “In process engineering, we often want to know this so we can figure out how to size a pump to overcome that pressure drop and get a fluid from point A to point B. This concept also allows us to figure out whether we can gravity drain instead of using a pump which can be expensive. Factors like surface roughness, pipe fittings, and fluid properties all affect the amount of pressure drop.”

Her advice for anyone considering a career in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM)?

“STEM is broad,” says Amy. “Even within engineering, there’s so much I don’t know about what other engineers do in their daily work. If you’re passionate about science or math – or if you simply enjoy solving problems – then there is likely something in the STEM field which will interest you.” – as told to Divina Paredes