Dr Agnes Kaposi honoured as LSBU celebrates women in engineering
London South Bank University (LSBU) has awarded an honorary doctorate to engineering pioneer Dr Agnes Kaposi MBE FREng, who led its Department of Electrical Engineering for a decade and championed women in the profession throughout her career.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony where her honorary doctorate was conferred, Dr Kaposi described her 10 years at South Bank as the proudest of her working life.
She recalled leading a department that served thousands of students, from higher technicians to postdoctoral researchers, including working people, the unemployed, and men and women from the local community and beyond. She urged the graduating class not to wait for opportunities but to create their own.
“This has never been an organisation of privilege but one of merit and excellence,” she said. “It has always served working people and it was always committed, as it still is, to eliminate inequity.”
"[LSBU] has always served working people and it was always committed, as it still is, to eliminate inequity.” - Dr Agnes Kaposi MBE FREng
Dr Kaposi led the Department of Electrical Engineering at South Bank Polytechnic, now LSBU, from 1977. She built it into one of the largest electrical engineering departments in the UK, pioneering an integrated approach to hardware and software engineering, and creating opportunities for women and others under-represented in the profession. In 1992 she became the third woman to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Ahead of the graduation ceremony, Paul Kett, LSBU Group CEO and Vice-Chancellor, hosted a reception in Dr Kaposi’s honour, celebrating LSBU’s long history of supporting women into engineering. Guests included Dame Tamara Finkelstein DCB, Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and students studying at LSBU on the British Council’s Women in STEM Scholarship.
More than a century of women in engineering
In 1920, the Borough Polytechnic, as LSBU was then known, opened its evening engineering classes to women working in the industry. Its first woman student, Ida Bould, came top of a class of 70. From the early 1930s, women were taught alongside men. In 1963, the Polytechnic appointed its first female engineering lecturer, Carol Maddex, a former prize-winning student. Two more women had joined her as mechanical engineering lecturers before the decade was out.
During the 1980s, the Polytechnic organised conferences and events to support women staff and encourage women and girls to consider engineering careers. In 1988, academics Linda Edwards-Shea and Bridget Shield set up a Women in Engineering Centre. It provided careers advice and mentoring for women nationally. Bridget Shield went on to become the first female President of the Institute of Acoustics.
In 2020–2021, LSBU marked a century of teaching engineering to women with LSBU 100 – Women in Engineering, a series of events highlighting the achievements of women engineers and former LSBU students. It currently hosts five scholars on the British Council’s Women in STEM Scholarship, and its Chemical Engineering course is ranked seventh in the UK in the Guardian University Guide 2027.
At the reception, Paul Kett described Dr Kaposi as part of a larger story of LSBU supporting women into engineering. He said: “I’m pleased to say that our work to support women and diversity more widely in engineering continues today.”
The Royal Academy of Engineering describes Dr Kaposi as a trailblazer in computer engineering. She is one of 50 Fellows featured in 50 for 50: Portraits of Engineers, a series of photographs on display at the National Science and Media Museum and marking the Academy’s 50th anniversary.
Dame Tamara Finkelstein said: “Agnes has spent her life championing and supporting women in the engineering profession, a much-needed endeavour that we continue to work on at the Academy. We are honoured to have her as a Fellow of the Academy, and to celebrate her honorary doctorate in our 50th anniversary year.”
Read more about Dr Kaposi’s career and her honorary doctorate.
Images shows L-R: Sir Simon Hughes, Chancellor of LSBU, Dr Agnes Kaposi, Dame Tamara Finkelstein DCB, Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and Paul Kett, LSBU Group CEO and Vice-Chancellor