Gender issues

I do a lot of work around women in CS and STEM.

  • I run the women@CS group at Heriot-Watt University.  This is a group for female staff and students, where we network, build community and have fun.  Upcoming events:
    • Cake and chat: 1615 on Monday, October 2nd in the Crush Area of EMB
    • women@CS committee meeting: 1315 on Tuesday, October 3rd, room tbc
    • Ada Lovelace event: 1515 on Wednesday, 11th October in EMB1.82
  • I am setting up a group at the Young Academy of Scotland with Eileen Wall called ‘Tapping all our Talents: Five Years Forward’.  This group will analyse how far we have come since the Tapping all our Talents (looking into gender equality in academia in Scotland) and what the next steps should be.
  • I spoke at the Women in the Digital Economy event run by the cross-party group on Science and Technology and the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday, 26th September.
  • I have several students currently investigating issues around women and STEM:
    • Colin Davidson is doing a project looking at the factors that influence girls in schools to decide to study – or not to study – CS at university
    • Isabella Barton is doing a project setting up a website to support women in the CS department at Heriot-Watt
    • Shaun MacFarlane is doing a project looking at the percentages of CS female undergraduates across Scotland and analysing what universities have been successful in increasing these and how.