Engineer Liz Phillips has become one of only 140 women worldwide to be accepted as a fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the UK’s main engineering organisation with a global presence.

The Bradford university graduate, who is one of 11 people who have worked at technology company Radio Design since it started in 2007, has been a chartered engineer for more than ten years.

A filter expert, Liz leads Radio Design’s filter engineering technology group and invented two of the expanding company’s growing portfolio of patented products, which now stands at more than 20.

She has played a key part in radio Design’s success, including inventing the filter product that enables mobile telephone companies to share a transmission mast and significantly reduce their costs.

The universal combiner unit was a landmark development which gave Radio Design its first major commercial success and enabled T Mobile and Three to share their UK mobile network. The development led to the company receiving a Queens Award for Innovation in 2011.

Since then, Radio Design has seen significant international growth, with sales of more than £22 million achieved in the year to March 31, 2014. International business in the last quarter was responsible for 60 per cent of revenues. The company now operates in six countries and employs more than 270 people.

The company announced earlier this month that it had taken an extra 20,000 sq ft of factory space in Salts Mill at Saltaire and now has more than 60,000 sq ft at the World Heritage Site village and in Shipley, as well as having other facilities in India, China and Finland.

Its hardware services general manager Richard Coatesworth said: “Our international business is poised for further strong growth in 2014 and these larger facilities were needed to support this next phase of our business development.”

Liz, 40, is one of the youngest people to have achieved an IET fellowship and said she was delighted to have achieved recogniiton for her work. She was sponsored in her application by Radio Design founder and managing director Eric Hawthorne and director Richard Parry, both IET fellows.

Liz said she hoped her achievement would help encourage more women to become engineers and she will be acting as an IET ambassador to raise awareness and mentor potential graduates.

Mr Hawthorne said: “Liz is part of an amazing team at Radio Design. Her husband Ashley also works here as an engineer in our hardware services business. We are delighted that she has become one of only very few women worldwide to become an IET fellow.”

Worldwide IET membership is 157,701, of which only 3,696 are women, including 144 female fellows.