Elegance, for Yasmin, means practical, fit-for-purpose and cost effective in the challenging coastal context of port design and coastal engineering. Her love of mathematics and aversion to repetitive work led her to pursue her engineering studies at Stellenbosch University. From here, she joined WSP as a bursary student during her undergraduate studies and hasn’t looked back since.
“The dynamic work environment, continued challenges and associated opportunities for growth are the some of the things I enjoy most about working at WSP,” says Yasmin. “One of the other key reasons I still feel fulfilled at work is that I am working with an exceptional Maritime team with excellent technical skills and such diverse and engaging personalities.”
Diversity in her work is important to Yasmin, and she’s had no shortage of that as part of WSP’s Maritime team. She has worked on marine intake and outfall tunnels and pipelines, typically for desalination plants and cooling water for power plants, applying her skills from concept designs to detail design for construction and subsequent construction supervision. She has also been involved in port planning projects, with the aim of providing holistic solutions considering quayside, yard storage area and hinterland connection (rail and road) throughput requirements. Furthermore, Yasmin partakes in dredging designs and shoreline assessment studies – and enjoys drafting reports and presenting solutions in an elegant, easily understandable way. Diverse challenges are certainly the order of the day for Yasmin.
“Finding elegant, creative solutions to our clients’ challenges that are also fit-for-purpose and cost effective is important to me,” she says. “I enjoy making things as efficient and practical as possible. It’s also wonderful to be working with a highly specialised and expert team of colleagues from whom I continue to learn. There is always a challenge that is new and exciting in our space.”
Some of Yasmin’s favourite projects include the ground-breaking Morocco Algae carbon capture project with Brilliant Planet, where she was the Project Manager & Lead Engineer, and the Port Victoria Expansion in the Seychelles. “WSP did the container terminal operational layout plan, the port basin dredge design and associated studies for the project manager, PPM,” she explains. “I was the WSP project manager responsible for interfacing between the different design items, as well as the port planner and the dredging design engineer.”
When she’s not working on diverse, exciting projects like these, she serves as the Vice Chairperson on the South African Institute of Civil Engineering (SAICE) Marine Committee and is a member of the Consulting Engineers of South Africa (CESA) Young Professionals Forum (YPF) Committee in the Western Cape. “This allows me to serve the engineering community in South Africa by engaging with other professionals in the field,” she says.
She also enjoys dancing and running when she can find the time, is a proud “plant mom” and travels locally and internationally with her husband. This diversity of interests is really what makes Yasmin the elegant and creative problem solver that she is.
“Throughout my school and university career I participated in so many activities, which allowed me to grow significantly in many diverse components of life and technical abilities,” Yasmin says when asked if she has any advice for aspiring engineers.
“At some point, however, the opportunities start branching out so wide and it just isn’t possible to take them all on. To ensure you keep growing and don’t succumb to pressure, continuously assess where you want to go and how much capacity you have. This will guide you in selectively pursuing the opportunities that are most aligned with where you wish your career and life to go,” says Yasmin.
