Engineering student Tessa Sitjes on the power of innovation, defeating STEM gender imbalances and taking part in this year's solar car race

Tessa Sitjes is only in her second year of her mechanical engineering degree, but she's already witnessing gender imbalances in STEM courses.

Currently only 14 per cent of engineers in the Australian workforce are female, with women making up just 37 per cent of enrolments in university STEM courses.

Sitjes spoke to Newsworthy about her experiences as part of the Sunswift solar car racing team, the importance of diversity in engineering and the actions taking place to address gender imbalances.

"I think [people] are becoming more aware of the need for women in the workforce to have that diversity and the different perspective that men can't necessarily have on certain things."

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Tessa and her team mates have been working on the Sunswift solar car.