1976 to 1979. In 1981, Watkins attended the International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES) in Bombay, combining it with travel around India and Nepal. She also attended the 1991 ICWES in Coventry. She undertook research in medical electronics and published at least 13 papers on these subjects. She was a visiting professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Boston, USA from 1973 to 2010, spending a term teaching there in 1975. She was an advocate for international higher education programmes and founded a number of programmes for visiting students from the USA. Memberships Watkins was a Liveryman and senior steward of the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers, and became a Freeman of the City of London. She was elected a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow and active member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. She was a long-term member of the Women's Engineering Society (WES) and took an active part in the London Branch. She played a key part in WES's submission to the Finniston Enquiry, heading up the education sections of the submission. Watkins was a driving force in its work encouraging schoolgirls to consider engineering as a career, and acted as WES's careers officer for some years. She was elected WES President from 1980 to 1981. In 1981, she gave the annual Verena Holmes lecture entitled Chips for the Disabled, which examined how engineering could help support people living with disabilities In 1984, she donated the Watkins Medal to WES to be awarded to the best female engineering graduate of the year. She held tea parties for women engineering students at City University and encouraged them to join WES for the support it could offer their careers. Personal life On 22February 1946, Ziff married Flight lieutenant Thomas "Tom" Brown Watkins (19211961), of the Royal Air Force and Leith, at StSaviour's Church, Lewisham. He was a fellow engineering student at Edinburgh and had returned from active service in the Second World War. In 1947, they made their home in Sydenham, joined by her younger sister, who had survived the war, and her mother-in-law. The couple had two sons, born in 1947 and 1951. She took his surname, and was often called Maria rather than Marja from this period onwards. Death Maria Watkins died in on 2September 2010 at Highgate, London, and was cremated on 13September 2010. Her obituary was published in The