chemistry

Hayaatun Sillem

Hayaatun Sillem is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hayaatun Sillem rather than just read about it. In short: Dame Hayaatun Sillem (née Is'harc) is the former chief executive officer (CEO) of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Early life and education Sillem grew up in South Africa.

Key takeaways

Hayaatun Sillem belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hayaatun Sillem to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hayaatun Sillem from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Dame Hayaatun Sillem (née Is'harc) is the former chief executive officer (CEO) of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Early life and education Sillem grew up in South Africa. She attended Godolphin and Latymer School. She earned an MBiochem degree in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry from the University of Oxford in 1998. She completed a PhD in Biochemistry Signal Transduction in 2002, funded by Cancer Research UK at University College London, investigating the JAK-STAT signaling pathway supervised by Ian M. Kerr.

Career Sillem joined the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2002 as an engineering policy advisor "despite, if I'm honest, not knowing anything about engineering or policy", she said. She joined the Department for International Development 2005. In 2004 she became a Committee Specialist to the Science and Technology Select Committee, and later as a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee. In 2006 Sillem joined Royal Academy of Engineering as Head of International Activities. She led the academy's partnership with Africa. In this role she published Engineering Change: Towards a sustainable future in the developing world. She went on to publish Engineers for Africa: Identifying engineering capacity needs in Sub-Saharan Africa, a summary report. The report identified the capacity needs of engineering that are felt across Sub-Saharan Africa, and developed approaches to meeting these needs. Sillem was appointed to Director of Programmes and Fellowship in 2011. She is interested in how science and engineering can help with humanitarian admin, and how engineering can drive international development. She published Investing in Innovation in 2015. In May 2016, Sillem was appointed Director of Strategy and Deputy Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In March 2017 she was appointed a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. She spoke at the launch of Angela Saini's book Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story in June 2017. Sillem co-founded the Royal Academy of Engineering enterprise hub. She hosted the 10th Young Arab Women Leaders STEM conference in London in December 2017. She was appointed CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering in January 2018. She is a champion of the Government's Year of Engineering, looking to increase diversity amongst the UK's engineering workforce through the campaign This is Engineering. In 2019 Sillem was 31st in Computer Weekly's 50 'Most Influential Women in UK Tech' shortlist. She is a trustee of the London Transport Museum. She is a judge for St Andrews Prize for the Environment. She has written for The Huffington Post. In May 2025 Sillem announced that she would be stepping down at the end of the calendar year from her roles at the Royal Academy of Engineering and at the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. She was succeeded by Dame Tamara Finkelstein.

Awards and honours Sillem was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to international engineering. In 2021, Sillem received an Engineering and Physical Sciences Suffrage Science award. In 2022, Sillem was awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering from Newcastle University.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hayaatun Sillem

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hayaatun Sillem claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hayaatun Sillem before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hayaatun Sillem ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hayaatun Sillem

In research: Hayaatun Sillem appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hayaatun Sillem in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hayaatun Sillem is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Alumni of the University of Oxford, British biochemists, Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hayaatun Sillem outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hayaatun Sillem in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hayaatun Sillem means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hayaatun Sillem out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hayaatun Sillem in simple terms?

Dame Hayaatun Sillem (née Is'harc) is the former chief executive officer (CEO) of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Early life and education Sillem grew up in South Africa.

Why does Hayaatun Sillem matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hayaatun Sillem?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hayaatun Sillem.