Linda Jean Miller (born 1961) is an American

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

who works for

Bechtel Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia. , the ''Engineering News-Record'' ranked Bechtel as the sec ...

. She is currently director of the excavation works for the

Sydney Metro The Sydney Metro is a fully automated rapid transit system serving the city of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Currently consisting of one line that opened on 26 May 2019, it runs from Tallawong to Chatswood and consists of 13 stations ...

project, having recently been in charge of

Crossrail Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway ...

Farringdon Station Farringdon is a London Underground and connected main line National Rail station in Clerkenwell, central London. The station is in the London Borough of Islington, just outside the boundary of the City of London. Opened in 1863 as the terminu ...

Education

Miller is from Arizona. She has a bachelor's degree in engineering from

United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...

West Point, New York West Point is the oldest continuously occupied military post in the United States. Located on the Hudson River in New York, West Point was identified by General George Washington as the most important strategic position in America during the Ame ...

. After graduating, Miller started her career in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

, where she flew helicopters. She earned a master's degree in

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

Career

Miller has worked at

for more than 35 years. Throughout her career she has been a champion of engineering projects that leave a positive legacy. While working on the Boston Central Artery, a 161-mile road and tunnel project, she appeared on a

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

documentary. She worked on a new launch project at

Cape Canaveral , image = cape canaveral.jpg , image_size = 300 , caption = View of Cape Canaveral from space in 1991 , map = Florida#USA , map_width = 300 , type =Cape , map_caption = Location in Florida , location ...

and the

Seattle Monorail Project The Seattle Monorail Project was a proposed five-line monorail system to be constructed in Seattle, Washington, US, as an extension of the existing Seattle Center Monorail. The , 17 station Green Line running from Ballard to West Seattle via Seat ...

. She worked on the Connaught Tunnel, a Victorian rail tunnel built in 1878 between Stratford and

North Woolwich North Woolwich is an area in the London Borough of Newham in East London. It is located on the northern bank of the River Thames, across the river from Woolwich. It is connected to Woolwich by the Woolwich Ferry and Woolwich foot tunnel. Des ...

. At the start the team only had 135 year-old drawings as a guide, and had to use giant props to support the excavation. She described the project as 'open heart surgery'. She thinks it is ''boom time'' for tunnelling, with new technology putting the UK at the cutting-edge. She was seconded as project manager of

Farringdon station Farringdon is a London Underground and connected main line National Rail station in Clerkenwell, central London. The station is in the London Borough of Islington, just outside the boundary of the City of London. Opened in 1863 as the terminu ...

. The station includes platform and concourse tunnels, ticket halls, escalators, and

adit An adit (from Latin ''aditus'', entrance) is an entrance to an underground mine which is horizontal or nearly horizontal, by which the mine can be entered, drained of water, ventilated, and minerals extracted at the lowest convenient level. Adits ...

s built using sprayed concrete lining. In March 2017, Miller left the UK and moved to Australia to begin work on the

. She encourages all young women she meets to consider careers in engineering; including the children of

staff. She was selected as one of the

Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering In 2016 the Women's Engineering Society (WES), in collaboration with the ''Daily Telegraph'', produced an inaugural list of the United Kingdom's Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering, which was published on National Women in Engineering Day on ...

in the UK in 2016. That year, she was shortlisted for the

WISE Campaign The WISE Campaign (Women into Science and Engineering) encourages women and girls to value and pursue science, technology, engineering and maths-related courses in school or college and move on into related careers and progress. Its mission statem ...

2016 Woman of the Year Award. She appeared on the

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

documentary about

, ''The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway''. She has been a speaker at the

Royal Institution The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...

, the

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...

and

. In 2017 she was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for "services to engineering and to promoting gender equality".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Linda 1961 births United States Military Academy alumni People from Arizona Engineers from Arizona UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni American railway civil engineers Officers of the Order of the British Empire Living people 21st-century women engineers