Lessons from dams engineering: A conversation with Rachael Bisnett

You’ve been working as an engineer since 2010—how have you seen the dams industry change over time?

Culturally, there’s a broader understanding of professionalism within a working environment and the importance of life outside of work. Particularly as a woman in the field, that’s a definite shift I’ve seen, and I hope the trend continues for young women coming in.

From a technical standpoint, we’re on the cusp of deciding how much we let technology take over and how much we retain the human factor—what makes ‘engineering’ engineering. Things like AI give us so many advantages in terms of efficiency, but the challenge is in finding the right balance and not taking it for granted. We need to make sure we’re still living up to our professional obligations.

What further development do you hope to see in the future?

We don’t have enough engineers, period. We need to do everything we can to make engineering—and, selfishly, dams engineering—more appealing. And when more entry-level folks enter the field, it’s on people like me to really empower them to take ownership of their careers. That’s the other shift I’ve seen among the younger generations; there’s a different perspective on how invested you should be in growing your own career, but at times it might require sacrifice if it’s important to you.

As an industry, we need to consider how we can unlock the potential to continue to feed that pipeline with engineering resources, because, globally, there’s no shortage of problems that need solving.

What advice would you give young professionals entering the industry?

Internships are great opportunities to figure out what you don’t want to do. Those experiences really drove me to the specific path I wanted to be on. Once you’re in the industry, and you’ve found what you like, ask how you can contribute; put your hand up, show that you’re willing, and find the right way to get involved in the projects you want to be involved with.

For dams, take opportunities for field work. Being able to see stuff get constructed, seeing it on a real scale, is only going to make you better at what you do.

You worked on the Panama Canal Expansion Project—one of the most significant engineering efforts of the 21^st century—at the beginning of your career. What did that experience teach you?

Among many things, the Panama Canal project is an example of what you can accomplish when you leverage true collaboration. My biggest takeaway was the value of teamwork; it wouldn’t have been possible without it.

We had seven design centres globally, and all these moving parts had to be pulled into coherent design packages. Gates being designed in the Netherlands had to work with the structure being designed in Chicago, which had to work with the excavation occurring in Panama. Everybody was committed to what we were doing, pulling in the same direction, not only to get the work done but to be successful.

The Panama Canal was also an example of me putting my hand up and being willing to get up and go. Having a once-in-a-lifetime project be the way I got my feet wet was an awesome launching point for my career.

What lessons from your US projects do you think are most transferable to dam owners in New Zealand and Australia?

Australia has a strong application of dam safety risk assessments, and it’s still in its infancy in New Zealand in terms of how they’re approached and used in dam safety decision-making. Working on the Taupo Gates project, it’s been nice to bring some of that best practice and lessons learned from those different perspectives to help the owner make something fit-for-purpose.

New Zealand has a good opportunity to sort of ‘control your own destiny’ here: you have well-established examples of how these practices can be implemented across portfolios and regulatory regimes. It’s kind of cool to be in a spot where there’s no specific regulation, because we have an opportunity to pull the right building blocks and help with the problem-solving. The idea isn’t to create extra work but to work a little bit smarter.

Most dams are built to last over a hundred years—how do you approach designing a structure that will outlive you?

The legacy aspect of dam engineering is very special, and it’s something that is passed on to the next generation. We have the opportunity to learn from folks like Peter Foster in New Zealand, and then it becomes my generation’s responsibility to pass those lessons on to the next. As we continue to see technology explode, we have to keep training ourselves—and each other—so we can remain in the driver’s seat.

The phrase ‘engineering judgement’ gets thrown around quite a bit. It’s ultimately the professional obligation to preserve life safety and be the trustee of public infrastructure and everything that people rely on every day. That lies with us as the professional; it’s not something you can delegate to a machine.

We can’t lose sight of the fact that we’re still the ones ultimately responsible for the decision-making. What those digital inputs and analyses give us is a piece of information, but they can’t replace critical thinking and informed decision-making.

That’s the skillset that makes engineers irreplaceable.