What is Sea Your Future?
The Sea Your Future (SYF) Steering Group aims to encourage students, graduates, apprentices and cadets to enhance their specialised skills by engaging with professional development opportunities at the IMarEST.
We want to highlight the great work our young members do every day across the IMarEST's various channels - so if you are a student or an early career professional, share your activities online by using the hashtag #IMarESTSYF.
Get involved
IMarEST Connect
Join the Sea Your Future discussion on IMarEST Connect, our all-member engagement and networking platform. Use the Early Career Professional forum to connect with other professionals and share tips, ideas and comments.
Who's who?
The Steering Group is made up of IMarEST members of all ages, representing marine engineers, scientists and technologists from around the world.
Ashleigh Kitchiner
Ashleigh is a passionate marine biologist and environmental advocate. She is educated formally with a BSc. (Hons) Biology and MRes Marine Mammal Genetics from the University of Chester, UK. She has been fortunate enough to work in the energy, NGO and tourism sectors, working offshore in various roles. Ashleigh is passionate about onboarding environmental advocates and has developed and delivered webinars, conferences and, training courses at all levels.
Conor Savage
Conor is an ESG Programme Manager with Sainsbury's, where he leads the development and delivery of Sainsbury's Bank's ESG strategy. Before this he was a Climate Reporting Manager with NatWest Group, where he provided advice and technical expertise on climate, nature, and other sustainability-related policy. He studied Marine Biology at Bangor University, completing both a BSc and MSc, specialising in the effects of Arctic sea ice retreat on sea ice-reliant/associated species.
Evan Cheok
Evan is a doctoral candidate at the National University of Singapore, where he works on digital twins for fatigue crack assessments within floating structures. Reaping the huge benefits of IMarEST membership, Evan believes in paying it forward and welcoming the future generations of maritime professionals to the Institute. Evan has served as a committee member at the Singapore Joint Branch of RINA & IMarEST since 2022. He is also their inaugural Youth Committee Chair.
Elizabeth Joseph
Elizabeth is an environmental engineer by background and is passionate about working with leaders and organisations to help them shape a future that is both successful and sustainable. Prior to joining the leadership consulting firm Egon Zehnder, Elizabeth held various roles at Shell. She worked across several upstream and downstream operational assets including Shell’s maritime fleet, to help improve sustainability, decarbonisation, emergency response strategies and people and asset risk management outcomes.
Alan Williams
Alan is an experienced marine engineer, starting as an Engineering Officer with P&O, before joining Lloyd's Register as a Surveyor, with assignments to Aberdeen, Greece, Korea and China, conducting plan approvals, in-service surveys, and major new construction projects. This was followed by business development, project management, operational leadership, change management, and consultant roles. Alan is keen to share his experiences and knowledge with those interested in all things the sea and ships, to support sustainable shipping, and deliver quality shipbuilding.
Kobe Hoi-Yin Yung
Kobe obtained his MPhil and BEng in Civil Engineering from HKUST and is currently pursuing his PhD in floating offshore wind structural digital twins at the University of Strathclyde. Prior to his PhD research, Kobe was a civil structural engineer at AECOM and accumulated a wealth of experience in design statutory submissions, project coordination and site work inspection of Hong Kong mega infrastructure projects. He is enthusiastic in pioneering digitalisation within offshore renewables through artificial intelligence adoption and hopes to influence new generations in joining the exciting offshore industry.