When Jan Peters was doing A-levels her mum told her that engineering was dirty and she'd get eczema. She knew this because Jan's grandfather was a boiler surveyor. Since then Jan has worked in pristine semiconductor laboratories and has seen far more than the inside of a boiler, having travelled throughout Europe and Asia.

Jan currently works in the Department of Trade and Industry's Office of Science and Technology. They formulate science policy for the UK and fund a large amount of research, spending over £1.2 billion per year on science. Jan is head of the unit responsible for increasing the participation, retention and progression of women in science, engineering and technology.

At school she enjoyed chemistry and had a passion for sailing and the sea, so at college she studied chemistry with oceanography. After her masters degree she got a job as a researcher in a university. 'We designed and made new solar cells and part of my work was using more sophisticated equipment to check how good they were.' She went to work for the company who made the equipment and travelled the world as a product specialist.

As someone for whom science has presented fantastic opportunities itís no wonder she brings such enthusiasm to her job of promoting science and engineering for women. 'We are training women scientists and engineers to go into schools and give talks and are building up the Women Into Science and Engineering (WISE) campaign database of speakers.' As her own career demonstrates: 'Working in science and engineering you have an enormous range of jobs open to you. There are no barriers except the ones that our mums, the media and we ourselves put in place.'