Dr Nina Baker OBE, having lived on a barge as an infant and been obsessed with ships as a child, went on to spend several years as a Sea Ranger, preparing herself for her ambition to go to sea. She sailed in tankers and cargo ships for seven years as a Merchant Navy deck officer on leaving school and gained her First Mate's Foreign-going Certificate of Competency in 1979.
In her 30s she took an engineering design degree, from the University of Warwick, then gained a PhD in concrete durability from the University of Liverpool. Since 1989 she has lived with her family in Glasgow, working variously as a materials lecturer in further education and as a university research administrator and, until 2017, as an elected city councillor.
Now retired from all that, her interest in promoting STEM careers for girls has led her to become an independent researcher, mainly specialising in the history of women in engineering. Recent research projects have included work for the Women's Engineering Society's centenary in 2019 and the Electrical Association for Women's centenary in 2024. A collaboration with the Lloyd's Register Foundation's Rewriting Women into Maritime History project resulted in blogs and talks on women in shipbuilding and in ropemaking.
She was Deacon of the Incorporation of Hammermen of Glasgow for 2022-2023. She has been a Deputy Lieutenant in the Glasgow Lieutenancy since 2017 and was appointed an OBE in the 2023 New Year's Honours' list, for services to the history of women in engineering.

Other books by Nina Baker:
Beneath the Radar. An illustrated account of an ordinary radar operator's life in RAF radar stations 1942-6
Adventures in Aeronautical Design: The Life of Hilda M. Lyon
Both available from Amazon

Her blog is at womenengineerssite.[...]/