Ella Podmore has carved out a crucial position as a materials engineer at one of the world’s best and most innovative car manufacturers, McLaren. She’s relishing the opportunity to apply her expertise in engineering cars like the 750S, Artura, and W1, and she’s doing all of this while being an inspiration to women and everyone she’s mentored through the STEM program. Simply put, she’s rewriting the science and engineering history books.
When I spent time behind the wheel of a McLaren 750S earlier this year, I was left speechless by its power, performance, and technology. I’m a journalist first and foremost, but what truly gets me excited is cutting-edge engineering that gives you a sensation that you’ve never found in a car before. It could be the power, the lightweight carbon-fibre monocoque, the ground-breaking suspension system, or a combination of all these things. However, I’m not an engineer, so I can only try my best to explain.
What I needed to do was go to the source, but instead of putting me in a room with a mechanical engineer, designer, or product specialist, McLaren went a step further. They told me that I HAD to speak with their materials engineer manager, Ella Podmore MBE, who is the person responsible for all material-related investigations across all projects of McLaren.
She has been at the company for seven years and, in that time, has won IET’s Young Woman Engineer of the Year 2020, been named Surrey’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2022, and more recently received an MBE in Her Majesty The Queen’s Birthday Honours List for contributions to engineering, innovation, and diversity.
Beyond that, I learned that Ella is an avid STEM ambassador and frequently talks to students about career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Despite being with the business for several years, I feel her journey is only just getting started. Her aim to inspire the next generation to make an impact whilst showcasing how the disciplines of science and engineering are for everyone is inspirational and disruptive.
“I loved chemistry and I loved understanding atoms and looking at things under microscopes. Still, I knew I wanted to fix problems, contribute to industry, and align that chemistry element to engineering. It pointed me down the root of materials engineering and it only took me a couple of open days to realise, wow, the potential of understanding how atomically materials are made up could progress technology, as we know it.”
Like Dr. Kate Reid, the Lune Croissanterie founder who started in Formula 1 as an aerodynamicist, Ella Podmore always loved science and engineering at school. “I was fortunate to be at a school where I knew what an engineer did, I loved chemistry, and I loved understanding atoms and looking at things under microscopes.”
She knew from a very young age that she wanted to fix problems, contribute to industry, and align that chemistry element to engineering. However, it wasn’t a given that she would go into the automotive industry. Still, it didn’t take long for her to realise the potential of understanding how atomically materials are made up could progress technology as we know it.
“There was a huge push for material science and engineering, so I went down that career route,” she tells me at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking. “But it wasn’t a given to me that I was going to get into the automotive industry. I always grew up with cars, my dad was a car enthusiast, and I had the McLaren P1 on a big poster on my wall, but it was there for like an inspirational piece because that’s the badass car that one day I was going to own.”
Now, after a recent promotion, Ella leads a team of materials engineers. However, I wanted to know more about what a day in her life looks like, and she was able to break down her job for me into three pillars.
“The first one is reactive failure analysis. We’re developing cars on test tracks, we’re putting them through their paces, and sometimes we have cracks, degradation, and other things that are just part and parcel of development. When this is being communicated, my team is the first team that comes back to. We get it under the microscope and determine the conditions we were running the car, and figure out exactly how it has failed, and if there’s anything we can learn from it.”
“The next pillar is specification. So engineers come up to my team saying, right, we want to shave x kilograms off the next car. What kind of materials could we explore to do that? We would assist them with the R&D elements.”
“Finally, the jazzy bits where we have bespoke options. So if MSO wants to come up with a colour that a customer wants to put on their car, it would be my team’s duty to ensure that that colour or material is up to production spec for the rest of the things that we produce.”
Ella has a hand in every project at McLaren. However, she was thrown into the fire with the McLaren 720S. “The 720S was my first project, and it will always be a special place in my heart when I was first over in MTC and I remember having the first sneak peek of it just as it was coming down the line.”
“I saw it, and I was like, wow, what is that? And then I started working on it because I was over there, I was living and breathing and looking around the car every single day. Following that car through to launch when journalists get to write their pieces and show it to the world, that following it through from that first time is really, really special.”
“I think the 720S was my first exposure to the luxury element side of the business. Those cars ran hot, so we had some really exciting surface treatment technology around the exhausts and most people sort of tend to sleep on this fact that, okay, we’ve got a panel there but most car exhausts are so far under the car that you don’t see these colours and things being put to the test like that. So some really cool surface treatment technologies were brought about on that 720S, and I’ve worked on every single project since.”
My experience with the McLaren 720S, and more recently, the 750S is much the same as Ella’s. However, if we’re talking about new McLarens, we have to talk about hybridity because it’s an integral part of cars like the Artura and the new flagship W1. “We had to be smarter for us to accommodate the battery technology in the Artura. We had to make a lightweight supercar even lighter, and that becomes difficult when you’re a lightweight company anyway.”
“We’ve developed a new V6 and we’ve developed a new carbon fibre architecture, but personally, I think we’ve learned a lot from panel design, surface treatments, and powertrain alloy from the Artura in particular.”
“You’ll also notice the design of the Artura is quite simplistic so that you have fewer panel breaks across the body of the car and we’ve done that to keep the car lightweight. Less bracketry, and fewer fasteners to hold the panels onto the car, too. However, you have to be very clever with the chemistry of those panels if you have to stamp them in one hit, there’s some really, really cool recipes for those materials if you like. That’s a big challenge and a big win for us with that car.”
Of course, I couldn’t leave the conversation about cars there, and I had to ask Ella about the brand-new McLaren W1 flagship supercar. While she admittedly had to be pretty reserved about that project as it’s a very special car, she did let us in on a few secrets. “With the W1, we’ve done some cool things with metallic 3D-printed parts on that car. I think for us to understand the structural elements of 3D printed parts and their durability is something unique with this project.”
“There’s a lot of hype around this process as you know, but the testing and the durability of those parts is still young in the industry. We’ve partnered with a company and we’ve developed this part and the learning that we’re having from that is exciting. When I get into my full nerd mode, the testing data that I’m pulling is something we’re going to use everywhere.”
When she’s not running the materials engineering department of one of the greatest car manufacturers in the world, Ella is one of the faces of the McLaren STEM program, which is there to ensure that engineering opportunities are there, visual, and for everybody. “There’s another stereotype that you have to be a brainiac to get into these kinds of things. It’s given me my career path and what I do now gives me such joy that I had to go back to my old school to tell all the young girls that this is badass, like, look at my office.”
“We have a skill set shortage in science technology engineering and maths in the UK. It’s not idolized for young students to be in these positions, and I think very much young girls and boys right now have to be what they can see. So it’s all about visualization, and fortunately after getting the MBE, and some awards and stuff, I’ve got a seat at a table.”
“You would laugh right because all of the people at the table are much older, and they’re sitting there wondering how we fix these things and they say “We’re going to run a career fair at a village hall,” and I’m like “guys, it’s TikTok” and they’re like “TikTok?” and, you know, we have to change the way that we tackle this and I am so passionate about science and engineering. I genuinely feel like if you want to make a difference in this world, do it through those avenues that drive the most impact with the younger generation.”
When it comes to the automotive industry, Ella Podmore has science and engineering in a chokehold. She’s carved out a crucial position at one of the world’s best and most innovative car manufacturers, she’s relishing the opportunity, and she’s doing all of this while being an inspiration to women through her work, and everyone she’s touched through the STEM program.
“When I joined McLaren, I had a double whammy of yes being a young woman in the space, but then also being the only materials engineer. I was one of the first in my technical craft and so when I was in boardrooms and I was saying “Actually I think we should change that to this type of titanium,” it ruffled a few feathers. I had a lot to prove at that stage but the whole room would turn around and think “Why is she trying to change what we’ve known for the last few years?” However, I’m in the wonderful world that is science and engineering, and if someone disagrees with me or doesn’t like what I was presenting, I can back it up with facts and figures.”
“I kept telling myself it’s nothing personal just take it back to the facts like prove you can only present facts and figures and that gave me I think the assurance in my ability and what I did to then be confident when I was presenting and then from there I built a reputation and then now they’re like oh okay yeah, Ella says so.”
“I want to continue on my pathway with STEM in the UK as I mentioned it’s kind of transition from going to schools every time but now being on seats in boards and governments. So I want to continue that movement, but then be a voice and a relatable figure for people getting into UK engineering and science. But then also make it cool, make it sexy, make it sassy like you know, make it resonate with young girls and boys today so I can’t see myself going anywhere farther than McLaren right now.”
“I fully believe that the cars are the coolest in the world and to continue to do that from a material science perspective is what I see myself doing.”
