Women in Computing Research: the Hopper Colloquium
London Hopper 2007 at BCS London Office
1 May 2007
Women@CL and BCS invite you to attend the annual London Hopper Colloquium to be held at BCS London Office in 5 Southampton Street, London on the 1st of May 2007 (11am-4pm). The aim of the colloquium is to provide a forum for women computer science researchers to come together to exchange ideas, form new collaborations, and more simply, become aware of the network of women conducting research in computer science. Talks are at aimed at Masters level up and will show the exciting research carried out by women, at all stages of their career, and from diverse backgrounds.
POSTERS
In addition to talks, there will be a poster session where PhD and postdoctoral researchers will have an opportunity to present their work. A prize of £50 will be awarded for the best poster. Posters may cover any topic within the field of computer science and/or interdisciplinary studies connected to computer science. All submissions will be reviewed through a peer review process. If your poster is accepted, you will be notified by 9th April 2007, and a display area will be available to you on the day of the colloquium. The accepted abstracts will also be combined into a proceedings, to be distributed on the day of the Colloquium. To submit a poster, please send an email to Louise Yahiaoui at louise@dcs.qmul.ac.uk by 26th March 2007, containing: your name, institution/affiliation, student/postdoc status, contact email address, poster title, PDF or plain text abstract describing your poster (500 words or less).
PROGRAMME
11.00 - 11.30 Registration & Coffee
11.30 - 11.40 Welcome and Introduction
Ursula Martin,
Professor of Computer Science and Vice Principal for Science and Engineering, Queen Mary, University of London; and
Director of Women@CL project, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge.
11:40 - 11:45 Welcome
Jan Peters, Managing Director of Katalytik; and
Consultant, BCS Forum on Women.
11.45 - 12.15 Turning Information into Knowledge: the Challenges of Integrating Diverse Information Sources
Alex Poulovassilis, Professor of Computer Science
Birkbeck College, University of London, School of Computer Science and Information Systems.
12.15 - 12.45 Internet - Where Information and Communication Technologies Meet
Natasa Milic-Frayling, Head of the Research Partnership Programme
Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK.
12.45 - 14.00 Buffet lunch and Poster display.
14.00 - 14.30 Why Understanding Humans Leads to Better Security Systems
M. Angela Sasse, Professor of Human-Centred Technology
University College London, Department of Computer Science.
14.30 - 15.00 Modelling Biochemical Signalling Pathways with Stochastic Process Algebra
Jane Hillston, Professor of Quantitative Modelling
University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics.
15.00 - 16.00 Panel session and awarding of prize for best poster
REGISTRATION
The event is free, but places are limited. Please contact Fiona.Billingsley@cl.cam.ac.uk to register.
THE VENUE
The colloquium will be held at BCS London Office in First Floor, 5 Southampton Street London WC2E 7HA. Directions can be found at: http://www.epsg.org.uk/locations/SouthamptonStGuide.pdf.Tel: +44 (0)845 300 4417
Fax: +44 (0)1793 417669
FUNDING
Funding is available for travel to the London Hopper 2007 Colloquium for postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers who without it, could not afford to attend. Please contact Fiona.Billingsley@cl.cam.ac.uk for details.
WOMEN@CL
Women@CL provides local, national and international activities for women engaged in computing research and academic leadership. It aims to support women in computing research, with a focus on interdisciplinary research, leadership and enterprise, through a programme of career development activities which include regional and national workshops, mentoring and networking. For more details see www.cl.cam.ac.uk/women.BCS
Established in 1957, the British Computer Society (BCS), with a world-wide membership of over 50,000 members in over 100 countries, is the leading body for those working in IT. BCS is licensed by the Engineering Council to award Chartered Engineer status (CEng) and Incorporated Engineer status (IEng); and more recently by the Science Council to award Chartered Scientist status (CSci). For more details see http://www.bcs.org/. The BCS is committed to inclusion in its activities of the whole membership and has established a new Forum on Women to drive part of this policy agenda.THE HOPPER COLLOQUIUMS
The model for the colloquium is the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing held annually in North America, which encourages professional networks of women in computer science. These American meetings are held as a tribute to Admiral Grace Murray Hopper - pioneer of the computer business language COBOL - who inspired many young US Naval computing students during her heyday and still continues to inspire many computer scientists around the world many years after her death.ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIES
Turning Information into Knowledge: the Challenges of Integrating Diverse Information Sources
Alex Poulovassilis
Abstract: Vast quantities of information are being produced by todayÕs information systems: on the Web, in databases, by networks of distributed sensors, in areas as broad ranging as business, science, health, learning and entertainment. People and computer applications may need to simultaneously access several different information sources in order to combine the diverse information available within each one to fulfill their information seeking aims and gain increased understanding. This poses many technical challenges that stem from the heterogeneity, autonomy and evolving nature of the information sources. Research addressing some of these challenges will be presented in this talk.
Biography: Alex Poulovassilis is Professor of Computer Science in the School of Computer Science and Information Systems at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is Co-Director of the London Knowledge Lab, a multi-disciplinary research lab which brings together computer scientists from Birkbeck and social scientists from the Institute of Education to explore how digital technologies and new media are shaping the future of learning and knowledge. Her research interests are in the access, integration and personalisation of information. She has been active in these areas for some 20 years and has held many research grants in these areas, funded by the EPSRC, BBSRC, JISC, EU and industry. Her current research projects are in the development of personalised environments for lifelong learners, and middleware technologies for the integration of heterogeneous, distributed biological datasets.
Internet - Where Information and Communication Technologies Meet
Natasa Milic-Frayling
Abstract: Emergence of the Internet and proliferation of Internet services continue to introduce challenges and requirements for new designs and technologies. The sheer scale of information resources and the size of the user population have been strong catalysts for new advances in information retrieval, machine learning, graph analysis, and visualization techniques. At the same time, a wide adoption of the Internet protocols and availability of suitable development platforms have turned the Internet into most attractive media for implementing solutions and delivering innovation to users.
The implications this has had for the development of content publishing, search, and communication services will be discussed. In particular, we observe that the boundary between communication and information access has become rather blurry. Content exchanged in newsgroup and online discussion forums is indexed and used by other individuals to search for information or find experts. At the same time, the Internet protocols enable new communication services - personal, continuous, and data rich communication across mobile and desktop platforms. Interesting design and technology aspects will be discussed through examples of research prototypes.
Biography: Natasa Milic-Frayling joined Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK in 1998. She has been setting research directions for the Integrated Systems group. Her interests include design and evaluation of information retrieval systems, machine learning methods for text, user centred design of information management systems, and technologies for cross-platform and context rich communication. Since October 2004, Natasa has been heading the Research Partnership Programme that facilitates collaboration between researchers and Microsoft teams in MS Subsidiaries across Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).
Natasa obtained her B.S. in Applied Mathematics from University of Zagreb, Croatia in 1984 and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA in 1988. Prior to joining Microsoft Research, she worked at Claritech Corporation (currently Clairvoyance Corporation), a spin-off company from Carnegie-Mellon University, producing software components for building information management systems. With the acquisition of Claritech by the Justsystem of Japan, Natasa assumed the role of the Director of Research.
Why Understanding Humans Leads to Better Security Systems
M. Angela Sasse
Abstract: Many security researchers and practitioners treat usability of security as a user interface (UI) problem. It is no co-incidence that the most widely known and cited paper on usability and security is Whitten & Tygar's "Why Johnny Can't Encrypt", a study of the user interface to PGP 5.0. Whilst there is no argument that many UIs to security tools are unusable, and that unusable UIs are bad for usability and security, it is argued that there are other pressing usability issues that need to be addressed. For example:
- Users often bypass security mechanisms because they interfere with production tasks.
- Users often bypass security mechanisms because their behaviour conflicts with their values and social norms.
- In many organisations, there is a discrepancy between security policies and security behaviour, which leads to a deteriorating security culture.
- The complexity of current security systems creates problems and fosters bad decisions, not just among end-users, but other, technically able stakeholders, such as system administrators and software developers.
Biography: M. Angela Sasse is Professor of Human-Centred Technology in the Department of Computer Science at University College London. With a background in Human-Computer Interaction, she has been carrying out research since 1996 to develop a user-centred perspective on security, privacy and trust. She has investigated usability and effectiveness of a number of security mechanisms, including passwords and biometrics. She contributed a review to the 2004 Foresight report on Cybertrust and Crime Prevention, and was appointed a Specialist Advisor to the Home Affairs Committe for its enquiry into the proposed introduction of ID cards. She currently serves on the Biometrics Advisory Group, an independent expert panel that advises the Home Office, and chairs the the DTI Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) on Human Vulnerabilities in Network Security.
Modelling Biochemical Signalling Pathways with Stochastic Process Algebra
Jane Hillston
Abstract: In recent years "Systems Biology" has emerged as a new interdisciplinary area encompassing aspects of computer science, engineering and mathematics, as well as biology. In this talk I will give an introduction to what is meant by systems biology and the role which modelling plays within it. Stochastic process algebras were developed in the early 1990s, primarily for performance modelling of computer and communication systems. I will discuss some of the motiviations for applying formal modelling techniques from theoretical computer science in general, and stochastic process algebra in particular, to modelling biochemical pathways. No detailed knowledge of biology or stochastic process algebras will be assumed, and the talk will be illustrated by examples.
Biography: Jane Hillston is Professor of Quantitative Modelling in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. She is a member of the Management Board of the Centre for Systems Biology at Edinburgh, an interdisciplinary research centre funded by the BBSRC, bringing together researchers in informatics, mathematics, biology and medicine. Her principal research interests are in the use of process algebras to model computer systems and the investigation of issues of compositionality with respect to Markov processes. More recently she has been investigating the use of stochastic process algebra approaches to model cellular signal transduction pathways and other problems in systems biology. She is currently enjoying a five year Advanced Research Fellowship from EPSRC.
Jane received the BA and MS degrees in Mathematics from the University of York (UK) and Lehigh University (USA), respectively. After a brief period working in industry, she joined the Department of Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh, as a research assistant in 1989. She received the PhD degree in computer science from that university in 1994. Her thesis was selected for publication as a Distinguished Dissertations in Computer Science in 1995. In 1995 she became a lecturer, and in 2001 a reader, in computer science at the University of Edinburgh. Her work on the stochastic process algebra PEPA was recognized by the British Computer Society in 2004 who awarded her the first Roger Needham Award.