Today is Ada Lovelace Day celebrating the work of women in mathematics, science, technology and engineering. For this year's celebrations we bring you a selection of our favourite female interviewees from the last 15 years. The interviews are part of our careers library, a collection of in-depth interviews with people who use maths in their jobs every day. To find our more about the pioneering work of Ada Lovelace herself read our article Ada Lovelace - visions of today. You can also check out last year's Ada Lovelace Day blog for a selection of Plus articles by and about women mathematicians.

Career interview: President of the European Mathematical Society — What's it like being a research mathematician and figurehead of Europe's representative body for mathematics? Find out in our interview with Marta Sanz-Solé.

Career interview: Actor and mathematician — Victoria Gould has always known she would be an actor, and went straight from studying arts at school to running her own theatre company. But she eventually had to come clean about her guilty secret - she loves maths - and has since managed to combine a career as a research mathematician and teacher with a successful acting career on television and in theatre. She tells Plus why she needs to use both sides of her brain.

Career interview: Cost engineer — Heather MacKinlay's work as an engineer has taken her from the civility of Surrey to the wild west of Australian mining towns and multibillion pound projects in the Algerian desert. And along the way she has also become a successful painter. Heather tells Plus that engineering and painting are just different ways of looking at the world, and how her work as a cost engineer is all about understanding the big picture.

Career interview: Brazil correspondent, The Economist — Helen Joyce is a former editor of Plus magazine who now works as a journalist for The Economist. In August she's off to Brazil to be the paper's Brazil Bureau Chief. In between packing and learning Portuguese she has found time to tell Plus all about her varied career and the role maths has played in it.

Career interview: Fashion designer — Sandy Black, Professor of Fashion and Textile Design, has combined her love of art and design with her love of mathematics in her career as a knitwear designer. Sandy talks to Plus about the mathematics in fashion, knitting, and how science and fashion could make the world a better place.

Career interview: Government statistician — Emily Poskett works as a government statistician for the Department for International Development. With lots of travel and the opportunity to make a real difference in poorer countries, her job is far more than just number crunching.