So Paulo Metro Project Welcomes First Woman in Latin America to Operate a 'Worm'

The giant underground excavation machine has a cutting wheel with a diameter of 11.66 meters and a length of 100 meters

Oct.21.2024 1:55PM
Victory Macedo

São Paulo
In predominantly male fields like engineering, many women become pioneers. This is the case of Sherry Romanholi, 27, the first woman in Latin America responsible for operating a "worm"—the massive machine that creates space for the expansion of São Paulo's line 2-green metro.



SAO PAULO - SP - BRAZIL - 10/16/2024: Portrait of Sherry Romanholi, 27 (Photo: Adriano Vizoni/Folhapress, DAILY LIFE) - Adriano Vizoni/Adriano Vizoni/Folhapress

The giant underground excavation machine has a cutting wheel with a diameter of 11.66 meters and a length of 100 meters, making it the largest in Latin America. It is also named after one of Brazil's foremost writers, Cora Coralina—in fact, all these machines are named after women. For Sherry, it is both a challenge and a happy surprise.

Sherry's connection with the machine began a while ago. Before operating it, she worked in logistics and oversaw the transport of the machine's parts and tools from China to Brazil. Then, the opportunity arose for her to move into construction and join the project, initially in quality inspection, and later in operating the excavation. The learning process to operate the machine has been happening on the job for the past seven months.

The daily work is not easy. Sherry must pay attention to the hundreds of buttons on the machine and the six monitors that display the cutting wheel, graphs, and maps. "The challenge is to understand each process of the machine. You need not only to see it from the inside but try to have a vision of what's ahead, what it might cause, how it's excavating, and what type of material it's removing. So , that's the big challenge—finding balance," she says.

https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/saopaulo/2024/10/sao-paulo-metro-project-welcomes-first-woman-in-latin-america-to-operate-a-worm.shtml

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