Female Egyptian oil engineer breaks barriers underwater

Meet Egypt’s first woman underwater engineer: A 26-year-old Egyptian oil engineer is one of only five women in the Middle East who practice commercial diving, and is the only woman in the region to train technicians in the field, Xinhua reports. Basant Bastawy, who specializes in underwater welding, constructs, inspects, and repairs oil pipeline connections in both fresh and saltwater. Bastawy’s work is in a male-dominated field, but she tells the Chinese newswire that she has trained some 200 men in underwater welding and commercial diving.