The Department's Women@CL network - which exists to support female and non-binary computer science students, researchers and members of staff here - is 20 years old! To celebrate this milestone, we are holding a special anniversary event on Wednesday 20th March 2024.
Women@CL runs events and activities to help female and non-binary computer scientists in their careers and encourage them to aspire to leadership positions.
Since it was founded by Professor Mateja Jamnik and Professor Ursula Martin CBE in 2003, it has helped create a strong and supportive community for its members and offered financial help to some who would otherwise struggle to study here.
Now, to celebrate its 20th birthday, we are inviting former and current members and distinguished guests to come and join us for a series of talks and panel sessions, informal knowledge exchange and social networking with some of computer science's brightest female minds.
Many speakers will share their personal experiences and journeys as women working in computer science and debate the hot topics currently facing women in STEM subjects.
The event will take place here in the William Gates Building. It will start at 12:30 with lunch. Registration is essential. If you would like to attend, please sign up here: https://forms.gle/YVgtLX66aPbtAuB98
Invited guests include:
- Professor Jean Bacon (The first woman lecturer in this Department; Emeritus Professor of Distributed Systems here and Emeritus Fellow and Director of Studies, Jesus College Cambridge)
- Professor Ann Blandford (Mathematics BA from the University of Cambridge; Professor of Human–Computer Interaction in the Department of Computer Science, UCL)
- Professor Dame Muffy Calder (Vice Principal & Head of College of Science & Engineering, University of Glasgow)
- Dr Rosemary Francis FREng (Computer Architecture PhD, University of Cambridge; Entrepreneur; Chief Scientist at Altair)
- Professor Philippa Gardner (Former EPSRC Advanced Fellowship in this Department; Professor in the Department of Computing, Imperial College London)
- Professor Mateja Jamnik (Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Cambridge)
- Professor Caroline Jay (Professor of Computer Science and Head of Research in the School of Engineering, University of Manchester)
- Professor Ursula Martin CBE FREng (Mathematics BA from the University of Cambridge; Professor Emerita at the University of Edinburgh and Emeritus Fellow, Wadham College Oxford)
- Dr Ken Moody (Emeritus Faculty in this Department; Life Fellow of King's College Cambridge)
- Professor Niki Trigoni FREng (Computer Science PhD from the University of Cambridge; Professor of Computer Science, University of Oxford)
- Dr Laura James (Engineering PhD from the University of Cambridge; Engineering Director at Overstory; Entrepreneur)
Industrial supporters
We are extremely grateful for the support from our donors who have supported Women@CL over the years, including Arm and Qualcomm. The donations we received have been invaluable in helping us invite speakers to the Department, support members and put on events like the annual Oxbridge Women in Computer Science Conference.
Timetable
12.00 Guests; arrival and networking lunch
13.00 Opening talk by Professor Mateja Jamnik and Professor Ursula Martin: "Women@CL, how it all began and the impact it has made"
14.00 Talk by Professor Ann Blandford: "Data, ArtificiaI Intelligence and Interaction: Explorations in Healthcare"
14.30 Talk by Professor Philippa Gardner: "Verified Software at Scale"
15.00 Coffee Break
15:30 Talk by Professor Niki Trigoni: "Cyber Physical Systems for Emergency Response Applications"
16.00 Panel, moderated by Professor Mateja Jamnik: "Breaking Barriers: Redefining Success and Leadership in Computer Science"
17.00 Event closes
18.30 Drinks reception at Queens’ College Cambridge (for Women@CL members & guests only)
19.00 Dinner at Queens’ College Cambridge (for Women@CL members & guests only)
Panellists
Professor Ursula Martin, Professor Caroline Jay, Professor Dame Muffy Calder, Professor Jean Bacon
Guests Bios
Professor Mateja Jamnik is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Cambridge. She is developing AI techniques for human-like computing. Her work focuses on how people solve problems using informal techniques, which she then computationally models to enable AI engines to reason in a similar way to humans. She builds systems that can analyse and recommend representations appropriate for a human and a problem at hand. Her research on diagrammatic reasoning is internationally recognised as pioneering. In her recent work she combines reasoning with machine learning techniques in order to advance the explainability of AI systems, and applies them to personalised medicine and tutoring systems. Mateja is passionate about bringing science closer to the public and engages frequently with the media and public science events. Her active support of women scientists was recognised by the Royal Society which awarded her the Athena Prize for co-founding the pioneering women@CL national network. She has been advising the UK government on policy direction in relation to the impact of AI on society.
Professor Caroline Jay is a Professor of Computer Science and Head of Research in the School of Engineering. She is qualified as both a Psychologist (BA, CPsychol) and Computer Scientist (MSc, PhD), and undertakes research crossing these domains. She is Research Director of the Software Sustainability Institute, and a keen advocate for open and reproducible science. She was named in the Guardian as one of the 2022 Top 50 Women in Engineering for her contributions to healthcare technology.
Professor Dame Muffy Calder has been Vice-Principal and Head of College of Science and Engineering, University of Glasgow since 2015, previously she was the Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland. She is a computer scientist with research interests in modelling and automated reasoning for complex, interactive, and sensor-driven systems, and privacy intrusion.
Professor Ann Blandford is Professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the Department of Computer Science at UCL, and a member of UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC). Her first degree is in Mathematics, from Cambridge University, and her PhD is in Artificial Intelligence and Education, from the Open University. She started her career in industry as a software engineer, followed by a period managing the Computer Assisted Teaching Unit at QMUL. In 1991, she joined the Applied Psychology Unit in Cambridge as a research scientist. She moved to Middlesex University, initially as a lecturer, and subsequently as Professor and Director of Research in Computing Science. She moved to UCL as a Senior Lecturer in 2002 and became a professor (again) in 2005. She has published widely on design and human factors for digital health technologies, and has an h-index of 60 (Google Scholar). She has been technical programme chair for IHM-HCI 2001, HCI 2006, DSVIS 2006, NordiCHI2010 and ICHI 2016. She chaired the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB) (1997-1999) and was a member of the EPSRC Information and Communications Technologies Strategic Advisory Team (2004-2008). She is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and a member of the UK Computing Research Committee, which she chaired 2016-2018. She served on the Research Evaluation Framework (REF 2021) sub-panel on Computer Science and Informatics. In 2021, she received an IFIP TC13 Pioneer award and became a member of the ACM CHI Academy. She serves of the CHI Distinguished Dissertations committee.
Professor Ursula Martin CBE FREng FRSE DSc holds Emeritus roles in Edinburgh Informatics and Oxford Mathematics, and is a Distinguished Honorary Fellow of the Department of Computer Science and Technology at the University of Cambridge. Her research, initially in algebra, logic and the use of computers to create mathematical proofs, broadened to encompass wider social and cultural approaches to understanding the circulation and impact of foundational research in computer science and mathematics. She is also the author of papers and a popular book on the mathematics of Ada Lovelace. After undergraduate maths at Cambridge, and a PhD at Warwick, the moved into computer science, and held roles at the Universities of Manchester, St Andrews and London, before moving to Oxford in 2014, supported by an EPSRC Fellowship. Throughout her career she has been involved in many activities for women in science, including: establishing the pioneering Women@CL project at the University of Cambridge. Numerous national roles included the UK Defence Science Advisory Council, and involvement in REF/RAE including membership of UKRI's Interdisciplinary Advisory Panel for the 2022 REF. In retirement she enjoys pottering round Europe in a campervan.
Professor Jean Bacon started work at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington in summer 1963, after graduating in Maths (at that time there were no Computer Science degrees). She programmed the delay-line-based ACE computer in machine code. She moved to GEC, Hirst Research, Wembley (for two-body reasons) from where she programmed the London University Atlas. Then, after a short spell teaching at the local Tech. in Watford, she taught at Hatfield Poly (Now University of Hertfordshire) until 1985, when she became the first woman Lecturer in the Computer Lab (Principal Lecturer at a Poly to Lecturer at Cambridge meant a large cut in salary.) At Hatfield she became interested in concurrent and distributed systems issues and in Cambridge, she led the Opera Research Group, with Ken Moody, until she retired in 2014.
Dr Rosemary Francis FReng founded Ellexus, the I/O profiling company, in 2010. She grew the company and global customer base for ten years before it was acquired by Altair in 2020. Rosemary obtained her PhD in computer architecture from the University of Cambridge and worked in the semiconductor industry before founding Ellexus. She is now Chief Scientist for HPC at Altair, responsible for the future roadmap of workload managers Altair® PBS Professional® and Altair® Grid Engine®. Rosemary is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Rosemary is also member and supporter of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, an educational charity that promotes access to technology education and digital making. She has two small children and is a keen gardener and windsurfer.
Dr Laura James is an engineering leader who has worked in diverse sectors, building cutting edge tech systems and innovative organisations. She is Engineering Director at climate tech startup Overstory, co-founding trustee at CoFarm.co, and also serves as board chair at the Green Web Foundation, and at Now Play This. Find out more at LBJ.org.uk
