Major road upgrades are providing major opportunities for budding engineers around the world.
Tanuli Vithanachchi is one of our intern engineers, and following in her mother’s footsteps led her to an exciting internship opportunity with the Barwon Heads Road Upgrade.
The 22-year-old left homeland Sri Lanka in 2022 to study engineering over 8,300km away in Geelong before earning a 6 month civil engineering internship with Major Road Projects Victoria in early 2023
Tanuli drew career inspiration from her mother, who works as a civil engineer back in Sri Lanka.
With a month of her internship remaining, Tanuli considers it an excellent learning experience.
Tanuli hopes to find permanent work as a project engineer in sustainability and renewables after graduating from Deakin University next year.
With Women in Engineering Day 2023 on Friday 23 June, Tanuli is urging any woman wanting to become an engineer to pursue their dream.
Tanuli is one of 41 interns gaining on-the-job experience as part of the MRPV Internship Program for 2023, which offers hands-on experience to the next generation of transport infrastructure professionals.
It comes as the Barwon Heads Road Upgrade opened all lanes to traffic in June. The upgrade has added 4km of lanes between Belmont and Charlemont to make travel safer and more reliable for motorists.
Other improvements include intersection upgrades and a new shared-use path for walking and cycling. The upgrade has also removed a dangerous level crossing and replaced it with a bridge over the Marshall railway line.
The upgraded section of road is set to cater for 44,000 daily journeys by 2031.
The Barwon Heads Road Upgrade is jointly funded by the Australian and Victorian governments.