a Continuum of engineering excellence from Scotland

Field Programmable Gate Array design

Field Programmable Gate Array design

Carol Marsh

Born 1963

Carol Marsh

electronics engineer, specialist in Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Vice President IET, Past President WES.

Engineering Achievements

Carol was an early pioneer of Field Programmable Gate Arrays in Marconi and BAE Systems. After a Doctorate in System Level Integration, Carol joined Leonardo in an Executive role as Interim Head of Electronics Engineering and Firmware Design Authority, leading over 300 engineers with responsibility for resourcing, training, tools, processes, strategy and ensuring FPGA designs achieved DO-254 Certification.

She became a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor at Edinburgh Napier University in 2020.

In 2022, she became Head of Digital Systems at Celestia UK, an innovative Electronic Phased Array Antenna SME, responsible for expanding their digital systems capabilities in the UK and Portugal. 

Carol is passionate about engineering and throughout her career has sought opportunities to promote it to others, so they can benefit from the challenges and rewards a career in engineering brings. She does valuable pro-bono work as a Vice President and Trustee of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Council member of Institution of Engineers in Scotland (IES), board member of Engineering Scotland, Vice President of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts (RSSA), Advisory board member of the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE), board member of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) and Past President of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES). She was Strathclyde University’s Alumna of the Year in 2022 and was recognized with an Honorary Doctorate from Edinburgh Napier University in 2023.

At WES Carol managed the Doris Gray Awards, distributing £10k annually for ten years to women facing financial difficulties while studying engineering and supporting events promoting engineering to women. She founded and ran the WES female student engineering conference between 2009 and 2014 promoting engineering as a career, now an annual event. In 2009, Carol launched a Girls into STEM event, now run annually across Scotland by The Institute of Physics (IoP). In 2014 she founded the Girls into Engineering event, for 40-60 Primary 7 girls from three local deprived schools, attended by King Charles in 2014 and still run by Leonardo. Carol also raised funds and managed the digitization of the WES Journals.

Carol is a mentor, judge, fellow advisor, professional registration advisor and interviewer and a STEM ambassador. She has championed flexible working, nominated engineers for award (two won the IET Young Women Engineer of the Year Award) and given over 100 presentations across the UK, Europe, USA, at the Edinburgh Science Festival, conferences and IEEE events. She is a true engineering role model.

Her Life

  1. 1963 Born Carol Gillies on 18 May 1963 in Edinburgh to French Polisher James Gillies and Office Administrator Janice Gillies.
  2. 1968-81 Age: 5-18 Milton House Primary School (1 year); Stenhouse Primary School (6 years); Tynecastle High School (6 years)
  3. 1982-85 Age: 19-22 HND in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Napier College, graduating with distinction
  4. 1984 Age: 20 Married to Graham Marsh
  5. 1985-95 Age: 22-32 Worked at Marconi Instruments as an Engineer, where she pioneered the use of FPGAs
  6. 1987-90 Age: 24-27 Studied an MSc in Digital Techniques at Heriot Watt University, part time. Passed exams at MSc level.
  7. 1995-2000 Age: 32-37 BAE Systems as a Principal Digital Design Engineer designing Digital Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) and FPGAs
  8. 2000 Age: 2005 ECS Technology where she set up and led an FPGA team and developed FPGAs for a 40GB/s telecommunications instrument
  9. 2003-05 Age: 40-42 Studied an MSc in System Level Integration at the Institution of System Level Integration, part time. Passed exams at MSc level.
  10. 2005-09 Age: 42-46 Full time Doctorate in System Level Integration. Sponsored by Algotronix.
  11. 2006-15 Age: 43-52 Director and Trustee of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES).
  12. 2007 Age: 44 Won the Elektra European Electronics Industry Awards Student Engineer category. Became a STEM Ambassador.
  13. 2008 Age: 45 Algotronix’ DesignTag won the Emerging Technology Category at the NMI Awards in the Electronic Category and received a highly commended in the Security Category at the IET Innovation Awards
  14. 2009 Age: 46 Leonardo, Firmware Functional Lead.
  15. 2011 Age: 48 Awarded an Engineering Doctorate in System Level Integration from the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot Watt and Strathclyde. Thesis: Detecting Misuse of IP & Counterfeit ICs using Thermal Communications Channels. Developed several variants of Algotronix’ DesignTag
  16. 2013-14 Age: 50 Became Chartered Engineer and awarded Fellowship of Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).
  17. 2015 Age: 52 First female chair of IET Scotland South East Local Network.
  18. 2018 Age: 55 Chair of IET Scotland. Honorary Life Membership of the Kilmarnock Engineering and Science Society (KESS).
  19. 2019 Age: 56 Promoted to Executive in Leonardo and became Interim Head of Electronics and the Firmware Design Authority. Director of the Engineering Scotland Board. Royal Scottish Society of Arts (RSSA) Committee. Hammermen of Edinburgh Deacon Committee.
  20. 2020 Age: 57 Awarded an OBE for Diversity and Inclusion in Electronic Engineering in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Burgess of the City of Edinburgh.
  21. 2020-23 Age: 57-60 Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor at Edinburgh Napier University. Chair of the IET Council.
  22. 2022 Age: 59 Joined Celestia UK as Head of Digital Systems. Vice President and Trustee of IET. Chair of the Volunteer Engagement and the Engineering Policy Group Scotland Boards. Member of the Nominations and Succession Committee. Joined the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE) Advisory Board. Joined the Institution of Engineers in Scotland (IES) Board. Joined the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) Board.
  23. 2023 Age: 60 Inducted into the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame and elected Honorary Fellow of IES.

Legacy and Honours

OBE for Diversity and Inclusion in Electronic Engineering, 2020

Honorary Doctorate, Edinburgh Napier University, 2023

University of Strathclyde Alumna of the Year, 2022

Forward Ladies Leadership STEM Leader of the Year Award 2023

Shortlisted for Women in Defence Promotion of Gender Balance Award 2019

FDM Everywoman Inspiration Award, 2016

WES Isabel Hardwich Medal for outstanding achievements over a sustained period, 2015

WES Gillian Skinner Award for founding and organising the Female Engineering Student Conference, 2009

Won the Electronic Category and received a highly commended in the Security Category at the IET Innovation Awards, 2008

Emerging Technology Category at the NMI Awards for Algotronix’ DesignTag, 2008

Elektra European Electronics Industry Awards Student Engineer category, 2007

President of the Women’s Engineering Society 2013-2014

Vice President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology 2022-2025

Vice President of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts from 2023

Some Firsts:

First in family to stay on at school, go to university, become an engineer and receive a Doctorate.

First female executive in Electronics Function in Leonardo.

First female chair of the IET Scotland South East Local Network, IET Scotland Board, IET Council, Engineering Policy Group Scotland.

More Information

Brouchier, J., Dabbous, N., Kean, T., Marsh, C., Naccache D., (2009) “Thermocommunications”, Cryptology ePrint: 2009/002

Brouchier, J., Kean, T., Marsh, C., Naccache D.,  “Temperature Attacks”, published in the “IEEE Security and Privacy” Journal March/April 200

Marsh, C., Kean, T., McLaren, D., (2008) "Protecting Designs with a Passive Thermal Tag", International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems (ICECS), Malta, IEEE Xplore, ISBN:978-1-4244-2182-4, pp 218-221

Marsh, C., "The Changing World of Programmable Logic", (2008),14th International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES), Lille, France

Sara Mugnaini, Ben Allen, David Alexander, Ed Totten, Carol Marsh, "Enabling Multibeam Technologies in Space and on Ground for OneWeb Future Systems", EuCAP2023, 17th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, Florence, Italy

N. Baker and C. Marsh, "The Untold Stories of Some Amazing Women in Computing : Smoothing the Curves: Dr Winifred Hackett, the DEUCE and passing the baton from Alexander Graham Bell to Academic Computing,"  (2019) 6th IEEE History of Electrotechnology Conference (HISTELCON), Glasgow, Scotland, 2019,  pp. 61-64

Kean, T., McLaren, D.,Marsh, C., (2008) "Verifying the Authenticity of Chip Designs with the DesignTag System", Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), California, USA, , IEEE Xplore, 9-9 June 2008, pp 59-64.

Kean, T., McLaren, D. and Marsh, C., (2007) "DesignTag: A Thermally Sensed Security Tag to Protect Chip Designs", IPSoC 2007, Grenoble, France. Short listed in the best paper competition

Marsh, C. and Kean, T., (2006) "A Security Tagging Scheme for ASIC Designs and Intellectual Property Cores", IPSoC 2006, Grenoble. Published by “Design and Reuse” on 29/01/2007, as their featured article of the week

Kean, T. and Marsh, C., (2006) "A Security Tagging Scheme for Application Specific Intellectual Property Cores", Embedded Systems Show (ESS) 2006, PhD Forum, 2006, Birmingham, UK


Download: Carol Marsh's Acceptance Speech on being inducted to the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame, James Watt Dinner, 6 October 2023

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