What happens between an energy idea on paper and a system that works in practice? Irene’s work focuses on answering this question. She uses energy systems modeling and data to understand how energy is produced. In this episode, she talks about her work and how she joined the energy systems field;
Hi Irene. We are happy to welcome you to Words That Count
Thank you for having me.
Let’s begin with a brief introduction about yourself
Before I begin, I would like to thank Mercy Kwiya for nominating me. Also, thank you, Words That Count, for creating a space where African women can tell the fuller stories behind the titles on our CVs. I am grateful for the opportunity to share mine.
My name is Irene Mutile. I am Kenyan and currently based in Accra, Ghana. I am pursuing postgraduate studies in Mechatronic Engineering while building my research work around energy systems and modeling. Living and studying in Accra has also exposed me to people working on energy and technology challenges from different parts of the continent. This has widened the way I think about the problems we are trying to solve.
I am a researcher working in the energy systems and modeling space. In simple terms, I am interested in what happens between a good energy idea on paper and a system that actually works in the real world. I study how energy is produced, moved, controlled, and measured. Another part of my work focuses on understanding how different energy pieces influence one another. I am also interested in what the data can tell us when the system does not behave as expected.
A normal piece of work can move from a model that refuses to behave, to a sensor reading that looks suspicious, to a conversation about whether the technically elegant solution will still make sense once cost, maintenance, connectivity, and real users enter the picture. I enjoy that messiness. It is where engineering stops being a diagram and starts becoming useful.
I also co-founded and lead SustenaCore. Here, I work with an interdisciplinary team to turn ideas into structured research and sustainable engineering solutions. We combine expertise in biomedical engineering, mechatronics, and renewable energy, moving projects from early concepts through system design, prototyping, experimentation, and validation.
Alongside that, I serve as a Program Coordinator at Tubariki Foundation Africa. Here, I support programs centered on mentorship, collaboration, and opportunities for young people. Those roles keep me grounded in something I care about deeply: strong technical work matters, but so do the people and communities around it.
Walk us through your journey into this industry of energy systems modeling
One of my earliest memories of being genuinely curious about energy is a windmill near our home when I was growing up. I could see the blades turning and water gushing out. But simply watching it happen was not enough for me. I wanted to know what was going on inside that process.
I remember asking my father how the windmill worked. He told me that wind energy was powering it. That answer settled the question for a moment, then created several new ones. How could something I could not see make those blades turn? What happened mechanically after they started moving? How did that motion become useful power?
Physics and Geography later slowed some of the wheels turning in my head because I finally had scientific explanations for what I had been observing. The funny thing is that getting answers did not make me less curious. It made me notice how one answer usually opens the door to another question.
By the time I was choosing a university course, I knew I wanted to study engineering. What I did not know was which branch. I then learnt that Multimedia University of Kenya, which became my alma mater, was among the first institutions in Kenya to offer a Bachelor of Science program in Renewable Energy. That caught my attention immediately.
There were people who advised me to choose a more established path such as Electrical or Mechanical Engineering. Their concern was reasonable: the career pathways were clearer, the job titles were familiar and there seemed to be less uncertainty in the market. I listened, but I also had a fairly high appetite for calculated risk. It was becoming difficult to ignore the direction the world was moving in. Cleaner energy, energy access, sustainability and new technologies were becoming central conversations.
I decided I would rather enter that transition early than wait until the path was completely predictable. I chose Renewable Energy, and I am still glad I did.
The degree turned out to be much broader than many people assumed. My undergraduate training gave me foundations in various fields. These included: electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical and energy processes, software and programming, energy economics, and wider energy systems.
That multidisciplinary base has been one of the biggest gifts of the course. It taught me to look at a problem from more than one engineering angle instead of treating each discipline as a separate box.
As I gained more exposure, the scale of my questions changed. I was no longer satisfied with understanding a solar panel, a wind turbine or a battery on its own. I wanted to understand the whole system around it. Things like; how components interact and how those interactions can be modeled. Also, what controls and automation can improve, what data reveals, and how an engineering solution changes when it is designed for the realities of African infrastructure and users.
That is what drew me towards mechatronics. I do not see it as leaving renewable energy behind. I see it as adding more tools to the same toolbox.
At Ashesi University in Ghana, I am pursuing an MSc in Mechatronic Engineering, and through ETH Zurich in Switzerland, I am pursuing a Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in Mechatronic Engineering. Both experiences are expanding how I think about systems, controls, automation, embedded technology and data.
The questions I work on today are more complex, but the instinct behind them is familiar. The girl who once stood near a windmill trying to understand why it was turning now spends her time trying to understand, model, and improve much larger energy and engineering systems.
What are some of the challenges you have faced while building your career in energy systems?
Uncertainty has been a recurring companion in my journey. Renewable energy did not always come with the neat job titles and obvious career ladder that people associated with more established engineering fields. I have had to learn how to make sense of a career that moves across energy, modeling, mechatronics, research, data and leadership without constantly asking whether I fit into one perfect box.
There is also the reality of building a career in fields that are still heavily male-dominated. I have been in classrooms, technical teams and professional rooms where women are few. That can create a quiet pressure to over-prepare before speaking, to double-check yourself one extra time, or to wonder whether a mistake will simply be seen as your mistake or somehow become evidence about women in the field. I have had to unlearn some of that pressure. I prepare because the work deserves preparation, not because I need to earn the right to be in the room.
Engineering itself can be humbling. A model can fail because one assumption is wrong. Code can stop working because of one line. A concept that seemed obvious to everyone else can take you three attempts before it finally clicks.
Postgraduate study has reminded me more than once that struggling with a difficult problem is not the same as being incapable. Sometimes the most productive thing I can do is go back to first principles, ask someone for help, sleep on it and return with a clearer head.
My resilience has helped me get back on my feet when things have not gone according to plan. For me, resilience is not pretending setbacks do not affect me. It is allowing myself to learn from them without letting them become the final verdict. I adjust, ask better questions and try again with more information than I had before.
I also often find myself among the youngest people, and sometimes the youngest person, in decision-making rooms. I see that as both a privilege and a responsibility. I have learnt to listen closely, prepare well, speak when I have something useful to add and resist the temptation to shrink simply because someone else has more years of experience. Age and gender can shape the room, but they do not have to determine the value of my contribution.
Tell us about some of the sources of inspiration that help you to stay motivated when faced with challenges
At some point, my motivation stopped being about proving that I could deliver the technical stuff and became much more about what I could do in my community given the skillset that I possess.
Africa’s energy challenges are not abstract to me. Questions of access, reliability, affordability, infrastructure and sustainability affect how people study, work, run businesses and plan their futures. I am motivated by work that can eventually make those systems easier to understand, plan, operate or improve.
I am also inspired by people. One of the lessons I have learnt early is that careers are built through relationships as much as through qualifications. Technical competence matters, but so does having people who will challenge your thinking, share context you do not yet have, recommend you when an opportunity appears, or simply tell you the truth when an idea needs more work. I try to build relationships that are genuine rather than transactional. This could be with mentors, peers, colleagues and other women in the energy sector. I know that meaningful work is rarely done alone.
The people I meet across Africa’s energy ecosystem also keep expanding my sense of what is possible. I value conversations with people whose experience is different from mine, especially those who are willing to share both what worked and what did not. They remind me that leadership is not separate from technical work. If I want good engineering ideas to become real systems, I also need to understand people, decisions, partnerships and the environments in which those ideas will live.
What are some of the most prestigious moment along this career journey?
The milestones that stay with me are usually the ones that made my world feel bigger.
Pursuing my MSc in Mechatronic Engineering at Ashesi University has been one of them. It has changed my normal and stretched me beyond the comfort of my original training. It has also placed me in a demanding, multidisciplinary environment and honed my cultural understanding of different parts of Africa.
My Master of Advanced Studies in Mechatronic Engineering through ETH Zurich has added another layer to that growth. I am getting education from one of the best institutions in the engineering world. This has exposed me to new ways of thinking about complex systems, modeling, controls and intelligent engineering.
Being selected for the 2026 RMI Global Women in Clean Energy (GWiCE) – Africa fellowship has also been deeply meaningful. Beyond the technical learning, it has connected me with women working on different parts of Africa’s energy transition. I value that network because it is one thing to read about the sector and another to sit with people who are actually navigating its technical, financial, policy and leadership realities every day.
Co-founding and leading SustenaCore is another milestone I am proud of. It gives me a place to test ideas rather than admire them from a distance. Research has a very effective way of humbling you. An idea can sound brilliant in a meeting and become much less brilliant once you try to prototype it, collect data or explain it to the person who is supposed to use it. I have learnt to enjoy that process because it turns assumptions into evidence.
Who is Irene outside of the energy systems environment?
Outside work, I am happiest when there is some combination of movement, books, food and people I care about. I enjoy being outdoors and I travel whenever I get the chance. Some of the things I like are; arriving somewhere new, walking around without being in too much of a hurry, noticing how people live and discovering the small details that never make it into a travel guide.
I also love reading and baking. Reading lets me disappear into a completely different subject or world for a while. Baking does the opposite. It forces me to stay present and patient with a process that cannot always be rushed.
I enjoy meaningful conversations, time with family and friends, community activities and supporting younger people where I can. I have been involved in student and community leadership for a long time. So, even outside formal work I tend to gravitate towards spaces where people are learning, organising or building something together.
What is your favourite quote?
I do not really have one fixed favourite quote. What I often remind myself, especially when I am overthinking a decision, is: “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will” ~ Suzy Kassem.
I like that reminder because it takes away the pressure to arrive at every opportunity already knowing everything. A lot of my growth has come from being willing to enter a space, admit what I do not know and learn.
A personal principle I try to live by is: Stay curious enough to ask why, and courageous enough to find out. It captures a lot of my journey because curiosity has often been the starting point, while courage has been necessary when the answer required me to take an unfamiliar path or learn something from scratch.
What are your words of encouragement for a young girl interested in energy systems modeling?
If you are a girl who likes STEM but still has no idea what exact career you want, that is fine. You are not choosing the title you must carry for the rest of your life. Choose the next useful step: the subject that interests you, the course that gives you strong foundations, the internship that lets you see how work is actually done. Exposure will answer questions that thinking alone cannot.
If the coursework is overwhelming you, please do not use one difficult semester, one bad grade or one stubborn problem set as evidence that you chose the wrong field. Engineering can make very capable people feel completely lost. Go back to the basics. Ask the lecturer. Find that classmate who explains things differently. Form that study group. Try the problem again. Understanding often comes in layers, not in one dramatic moment.
If impostor syndrome is loud, remember that confidence and competence are not the same thing. The person who answers first is not automatically the person who understands best. You are allowed to think before you speak. You are allowed to ask a question. You are allowed to be learning and still belong in the room.
And if you walk into that room and most of the people are men, do not spend all your energy trying to become less visible or trying to copy the loudest person there. Know your work. Keep learning.
Speak clearly. Build allies. Look for women who can show you what is possible, and also for men who respect your work and your growth. If a space constantly makes you feel small, that may say more about the space than it does about your ability to be an engineer.
Give yourself permission to evolve. You may begin in one branch of STEM and discover that the part you love most sits somewhere else. That is not failure; that is information. Build skills, build relationships and keep enough courage to keep choosing what is meaningful to you.
This has been a wonderful interaction, Irene. Thank you for allowing us to step into your engineering world. We wish you the best with the rest of your studies and look forward to more success.
One Comment
Wow. What an uplifting and inspiring story. I am so proud of you Irene and the woman you are becoming! Keep at it! And my key takeaway “Resilience is not pretending setbacks do not affect me. It is allowing myself to learn from them without letting them become the final verdict. I adjust, ask better questions and try again with more information than I had before.”