Caroline Hargrove facts for kids

Caroline Hargrove is a brilliant engineer and scientist. She is currently the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at Ceres Power. This company works on amazing things like fuel cells and green hydrogen technology. Before this, she was a top engineer at other cool companies like Zedsen, Babylon Health, and McLaren Applied Technologies. She even taught at the famous University of Oxford for a while!

Growing Up and School

Caroline Hargrove grew up in Montreal, Quebec, in Canada. She loved learning about numbers and how things work. She went to Queen's University in Ontario. There, she studied both mathematics and mechanical engineering. She finished her first degree in 1989.

After that, Caroline moved to England to study even more! She went to the very old and famous University of Cambridge. She earned her PhD, which is a very high degree, in 1993. Her special research was about using computer models to understand how tiny particles, like sand or sugar, move around.

Her Amazing Career

After finishing her PhD, Caroline stayed at the University of Cambridge for a bit. She was a Fellow at Sidney Sussex College.

Working with McLaren

In 1997, Caroline joined McLaren, a company famous for its Formula One cars. She worked on how racing cars move and handle. For ten years, she was in charge of the McLaren F1 simulator. This is a special machine that helps drivers practice and engineers test cars without actually being on a track!

In 2007, she helped start McLaren Applied Technologies as a new part of the company. She became the Technical Director in 2013 and then the Chief Technical Officer in 2018. Her job was to plan new research and develop new ideas. She was a big supporter of using big data in motor racing. This means using huge amounts of information to make cars faster and safer.

Caroline also helped use McLaren's racing technology to help people. She worked on tools for medical services. For example, she helped create a special device for bikes. This device could collect information like speed, power, and how the bike tilted. This data was then sent to coaches to help Olympic athletes and the UK track cycling team get better.

Her team also turned special sensors from Formula One cars into sensors for people. They worked with a company called GlaxoSmithKline to see how patients reacted to medicines. In 2016, she even announced that McLaren's simulator could be used to test regular cars for everyday driving!

Other Important Roles

From 2015 to 2018, Caroline was a special professor at Oxford University. She worked in the Nuffield Department of Surgery.

In 2018, she became the CTO of Babylon Health. Here, she focused on using artificial intelligence (AI) to help diagnose patients. This means using smart computer programs to help figure out what might be wrong with someone.

In 2021, she became the CTO of Zedsen, a company that makes technology to check blood sugar without needing needles. Later that same year, she joined Ceres Power as their Chief Technology Officer. She had already been on their board for three years. At Ceres Power, she works on exciting new energy technologies like fuel cells and green hydrogen.

Caroline is also a big supporter of getting more girls and women interested in engineering. She visits schools and helps students get work experience to show them how cool engineering can be!

Awards and Honours

Caroline Hargrove has received many special awards for her work:

• In 2016, she was named one of the Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering by the Women's Engineering Society and The Daily Telegraph.
• In 2017, she became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. This is a very high honour for engineers in the UK.
• Also in 2017, she was named one of the Top 50 Innovators in the World by Codex.
• In 2020, she was given the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by the Queen. This was for her great contributions to engineering.
• In 2023, her old university, Queen's University, gave her an honorary degree.

Media Appearances

Caroline has also shared her knowledge on the radio:

• In 2014, she was on BBC Radio 4. She talked about why Britain is so good at making Formula One cars.
• On November 20, 2018, she was the main guest on a BBC Radio 4 show called The Life Scientific.
• On March 6, 2020, the BBC World Service featured her on their "World Wise Web" series. A 16-year-old racing fan interviewed her about the F1 simulator.