WHEN most people think of land surveyors, they imagine a rugged, burly bunch of males, with weather-hardened faces from all that striding about the outdoors on building sites.

Disproving that stereotype is Loh Sook Yee, 28, the sole female land surveyor with the Singapore Land Authority (SLA).

She is one of just four women registered in the profession in Singapore, among a total of 96 surveyors. Of the other three women, one is hired by the Housing Board while the other two work for private sector companies.

But Ms Loh is certainly making her mark. Last month, she became the first Asian woman to win the coveted Hart Prize in Surveying from the Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering from the University of London (UCL).

The award, which some industry folks see as the most prestigious surveying award in Britain, is given to the top student pursuing a master's in science in surveying from the school.

The petite Ms Loh, who is married to trader Shaun Teo, 29, had enrolled in UCL's year-long course in September 2006 at the behest of her employers who offered her a scholarship. The couple have no children.

Earlier this year, she graduated with an average score of 71 out of 100, the highest in her cohort.

Not only was she the only woman in her class, but many of her male classmates were more the stereotypical surveyor.

'My classmates went to the pub for lunch every day,' she says. 'I had to learn how to drink.'

She proved her worth, however. Some of her peers had little practical experience and turned to her for help with work. 'I guess they soon realised I had some substance.'

But it wasn't all smooth sailing, she recalls.

An embarrassing moment occurred on a fieldwork exercise on the Isle of Wight in southern England. This involved trekking up a 200m-high hill in cold weather to survey the area.

The men vaulted over a 1.5m-high fence with ease. But Ms Loh's winter jacket snagged on a barb, stranding her halfway.

'My classmates literally had to carry me over,' she says with a laugh.

Becoming a land surveyor was not her intention when she went for a job interview with the SLA in June 2003.

The civil engineering graduate from the National University of Singapore had applied for a position with the Land Information Centre under the SLA.

She got the job but just half a year later, human resources - impressed by her strong mathematical background - came knocking. Tempted by the new challenge, the Kuala Lumpur-born Singapore permanent resident agreed to make the switch in October 2004.

Today, Ms Loh, who came here on an Asean scholarship in 1999, is principal executive of survey services. She is involved in SLA's Singapore Satellite Positioning Reference Network project.

One of its aims is to promote a high-accuracy global positioning system, or GPS, to both public and private sector ventures such as logistics companies and security agencies for such things as keeping track of employees or important items.

These days, work is not so tough, she admits.

Advances in data-gathering technology now allow surveyors to spend less time in the field and more time doing more high-brow analytical work behind a computer screen.

So now the term 'surveyor' is a bit of a misnomer. 'We prefer to be called spatial science professionals,' she says.

Field work is now usually a once-a-month affair but still requires lugging sophisticated gadgetry weighing up to 10kg.

To hold her own - strength-wise - among her male colleagues, she makes it a point to hit the gym regularly. 'The guys usually help with the heavy things and leave the lighter ones to me. But they can't do that always, especially when there are a lot of things to carry,' she says.

Former schoolmates who have bumped into her on the job sometimes ask 'what am I doing with a bunch of males', but gender has never been an issue at work, she adds.

And what of unwanted male attention from her colleagues?

'I'm conscious of not giving anyone the wrong impression and I treat them as friends,' she says. 'Anyway, I've always been attached and am now married so anyone would have given up already.'