Breaking ground and barriers

Isolde Piet has had a long and successful career in civil engineering, and has recently been awarded with an esteemed honour at the 2025 Women in Industry Awards for her upcoming work on the Suburban Rail Loop East tunnels.

When Isolde Piet first stepped into the world of engineering, she was drawn by the promise of creating lasting infrastructure.

“A career in engineering appealed to me because it offered the chance to build large pieces of infrastructure and leave it behind for future generations,” she reflects.

Fast forward two and a half decades, and Piet has done just that, across several continents and on some of the world’s most complex tunnelling projects.

Now, she has been recognised on a new level at the Women in Industry Awards that were held in Melbourne on 19 June 2025.

Piet was awarded with the coveted Excellence in Engineering award at the Women in Industry Awards, honouring her groundbreaking work in leading a team and her efforts to open doors for the next generation of female engineers.

“When I first started out, I didn’t imagine at that stage that I would go on to work across the globe and on other projects as massive as the Suburban Rail Loop,” she says.

Piet’s career spans over 20 years in the civil construction industry and across several countries including the Netherlands, Turkey and Australia.

Piet’s upcoming works will include leading the world’s first all-women TBM crew on Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) East.

With a Master of Science in Civil Engineering Underground Construction at the Delft University of Technology, Piet started out on what was considered the largest tunnel at the time – the Groene Hart Tunnel in the Netherlands.

Since then, she has gone on to become one of the first female tunnel boring machine (TBM) pilots in the world and leave her mark on the civil construction industry in Australia.

She played a key role in establishing a precast factory to manufacture tunnel segments in Brisbane, and has most recently worked on Victoria’s North East Link project.

Her latest and career-defining project will be leading the all-women TBM crew. Her role will be Construction Manager for Tunnels with Suburban Connect, the contractor delivering the southern section of tunnels for Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) East between Cheltenham and Glen Waverley.

SRL East from Cheltenham to Box Hill is expected to deliver 70,000 more homes on the doorstep of public transport, jobs, education and healthcare.

Related stories:

Major construction is now underway with tunnelling to begin next year and trains expected to take passengers in 2035.

On SRL East, Piet will not only lead the construction of the tunnel system, but also lead the way in paving a future for women in engineering.

Under her lead, the team will soon make history as the world’s first all-women TBM crew.

The recruitment campaign attracted nearly 900 applications from women across the country who are hoping to be part of the historic initiative. So far, two members of the team have been appointed, with the rest of the team now being finalised.

Chhunly Taing and Michele Killoran have rightfully earned their spots on the team. Both women have had careers in other industries before moving into construction several years ago.

Piet hopes the all-women TBM crew will set the standard for future construction projects worldwide.

“Training the women for Suburban Rail Loop East’s all-women tunnel boring machine crew will hopefully stand as a benchmark for future projects to follow. “We are looking to employ women with no previous construction experience, and give them employment opportunities once their work on Suburban Rail Loop is complete,” she says.

“By showing that women can play key roles in underground construction, we really hope to change the industry and encourage more women to see tunnelling as a career pathway.”

Piet says the more examples of women in these sorts of roles, the better.

“There’s an expression, ‘You’ve got to see it, to be it’, and I think that’s been part of the problem in attracting women into construction,” she says.

Shining a light on success

Piet believes there is the need for visibility in male-dominated fields like construction and engineering.

“Women need to see themselves represented in these roles so they can see the same opportunities are open to them,” she says.

Awards like Women in Industry, she says, are helping to change that.

“These awards help to shine a light on all the amazing opportunities for women that have tended to remain hidden in the past,” says Piet.

“Attracting more women into the industry – and, once there, ensuring we give them a platform to succeed – will also diversify and strengthen the employment pool.”

Her message to young women looking to get started in a civil construction or engineering role is simple.

“Females are just as capable as males in this space, they should just go for it and not think too much about the ‘what if’ scenarios.”