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School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science

EECS Women Higher Education Network (WHEN)

Mission

EECS Women in Higher Education Network (WHEN) can play a crucial role in establishing a strong community for individuals identifying as women and provide opportunities for exchange among academics at all levels – from PhD students to research assistants, postdoctoral fellows, to academics. The network will contribute to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion. Balanced gender representation improves working culture, supports a broader range of viewpoints and, therefore, leads to more creative ideas and innovation. This is particularly relevant for the fields traditionally underrepresented by women, such as computer science and engineering. 

Our goal is to create an environment for open communication and collaboration, enabling our community to address current challenges and potentially influence policies and practices within EECS and the Science and Engineering Faculty. The network will also allow for more visible role models and mentors, particularly benefiting early-career academics. 

 
Vision 

We are convinced that the most open discussions and natural professional collaborations occur with the bottom-up approach. Therefore, first, we plan to organise an initial participatory workshop to define the objectives and activities of the EECS WHEN. We will analyse the needs/expectations of academics regarding the EECS WHEN using professional moderation. This user-centred approach will address real challenges in the women’s research community. Within this event, we also plan to extend our core organising team by encouraging additional members to join. We will enable online access for all events for women who cannot participate in person but still need to benefit from the networking. 

Second, we plan a series of networking events featuring speakers renowned in the field of Computer Science and Engineering. The talks will be followed by networking events, which provide an opportunity ffor informal discussions.  

We are building this initiative with the support of the ERIC Fund as a pilot project, which can potentially develop further. In the future, EECS WHEN plans to expand its functions to include additional support for early-career academics and women mentorship programs for students. 

Subscribe to WHEN mailing list

Future Events 

November 2024

Wed, 6 Nov 2024 12:00-13:00 BWT - Dr Natasha Banerjee: Studying How People Interact With Objects To Enable Human And Object Aware Artificial Intelligence. A talk organised by the CIS Seminar. Location: PL 4.24 (Peter Landin) or Zoom link upon request.

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 11:00-12:00 BWT - Dr Janet Bastidan: Getting something out of nothing: data science in limited environments. A talk organised by DERI. Location: Zoom link upon request.

December 2024

Wed, 4 Dec 2024 16:30 - 18:30 BWT - WHEN Christmas Event: Pottery Class: Join us for a fun pottery class during the WHEN Christmas Event - get creative and spend the evening with like-mided women!. Limited to 12 spots. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via our Eventbrite event link.

Thu, 5 Dec 2024 18:00 - 20:00 BWT - WHEN Event: December Drinks in The Morgan Arms: Join us for a fun evening of December drinks at The Morgan Arms. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via our Eventbrite event link.

January 2025

Thu, 24 Jan 2025 18:00 - 20:00 BWT - WHEN Event: January Drinks in The Morgan Arms: Join us for a fun evening of January drinks at The Morgan Arms. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite (link TBD).

February 2025

Thu, 6 Feb 2025 18:00 - 20:00 BWT - WHEN Event: February Drinks in The Morgan Arms: Join us for a fun evening of February drinks at The Morgan Arms. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite (link TBD).

Past Events 

The network provides a series of workshops, seminars, and social events to enhance diversity and support women colleagues in EECS. Here are our highlights:

November Drinks in The Morgan Arms - 7th November, 2024

Thu, 7 Nov 2024 18:00 - 20:00 BWT - WHEN Event: Halloween November Drinks in The Morgan Arms: Join us for a fun evening of November drinks at The Morgan Arms. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite.

October Drinks in The Morgan Arms - 3rd October, 2024

Thu, 3 Oct 2024 18:00 - 20:00 BST - WHEN Event: October Drinks in The Morgan Arms: Join us for a fun evening of October drinks at The Morgan Arms - the perfect way to kick off the fall season!  Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite.

The fourth WHEN event -12th September, 2024

We’re excited to invite you to our Impact and Gravitas for Women course, a hands-on workshop focused on enhancing your communication skills. This session will provide you with practical strategies to communicate more effectively, handle challenging situations, and speak with confidence and authority. Whether you want to make your voice heard in meetings or showcase your expertise more effectively, this workshop will give you the tools you need to succeed. More info attached.

Details:
Date: 12.09.2024
Time: 10:00 - 12:30
Location: Room G2 Engineering

We hope you can join us! Please book your ticket to secure your spot here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/eecs-when-impact-and-gravitas-for-women-course-tickets-1012913560727?aff=oddtdtcreator

Please note: We have a very limited number of tickets for this session, as we’ve invited an external trainer for this unique opportunity. If you book and cannot attend, please let us know as soon as possible so we can offer your spot to someone else.

The third WHEN event - 6th & 7th June, 2024

We are thrilled to welcome Dr Eddie Dobson from the University of Huddersfield with a C4DM/WHEN talk (7 June) and a WHEN workshop (6 June). 

Topic: Inclusion/engagement workshop in music technology education and reflections and broader implications

Date: Thursday 6 June
Time: 3.00pm-5.00pm
Location: Room G2 Engineering
Topic: Inclusion/engagement workshop in music technology education and reflections and broader implications
Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/when-event-workshop-with-eddie-dobson-tickets-915270046347  

For the colleagues who identify as women, we will have a workshop with Eddie organised by the Women in Higher Education Network. In this workshop Dr Eddie Dobson will look at new research on engagement in music technology education, and possible implications for other STEM and STEAM disciplines.

Dinner: Following the WHEN workshop, we will gather at The Morgan Arms Pub at 6:30 pm (43 Morgan St, Bow, London E3 5AA) for a networking session with food and drinks. 

Registration: Please register your attendance via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/when-social-dinner-with-eddie-dobson-tickets-915397076297 

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C4DM & WHEN Talk by Eddie Dobson

Topic: A social psychology approach to fostering inclusion in music technology education

Date: Friday 7 June
Time: 11.00am-12.00pm
Location: Graduate Centre, Room GC601
Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/c4dm-when-talk-by-eddie-dobson-tickets-915329815117 

These events are part of the Pride Month 2024

The second WHEN event - 13th May, 2024

We are delighted to announce our upcoming Women in Higher Education Network event featuring Professor Ying Tan from The University of Melbourne. Professor Tan is a distinguished scientist in the field of robotics and a remarkable person. She will be sharing invaluable insights on navigating early-career challenges and building a successful research career for women.

Date: Monday, 13th May

Time: 4:30pm

Location: Room 4.24, Peter Landin Building, Mile End Campus

Following the talk, we will gather at The Morgan Arms Pub at 6:30 pm (43 Morgan St, Bow, London E3 5AA) for a networking session with food and drinks, sponsored by the Network. Kindly RSVP to secure your spot as we will need to confirm the pub booking, you can do so by booking a ticket here: 
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/when-event-talk-by-professor-ying-tan-tickets-896277228317

The first WHEN event - 18th April, 2024

Come join us for on the 18th of April from 5 to 8pm to the first WHEN event happening in person at Empire House, Whitechapel Campus, 67-75 New Road in London. Get ready for an evening filled with some food, drinks, and exciting activities. Don't miss out on this opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and make lasting connections. Mark your calendars and be sure to invite your colleagues who identify as women! You can register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/876726391237 

Team 

Dr. Katja Ivanova  Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, with the main research interest in multimodal human-robot interaction and haptic communication between agents as part of user-centred robotics for medical applications. Research Groups: Cognitive Science, ARQ, C4DM 
Dr. Anna Xambo Sedo Senior Lecturer in Sound and Music Computing at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, looking at designing and evaluating interactive music systems that support collaboration, participation, non-hierarchical structures and do-it-yourself (DIY) practices.  Research Groups: C4DM 
Dr. Mona Jaber Senior Lecturer in IoT with the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London. Her research interests include zero-touch networks, the intersection of ML and IoT in the context of sustainable development goals, and IoT-driven digital twins. In this regard, she has published in the areas of sustainable energy, smart mobility, and privacy-preserving e-health. As part of her industry research collaboration efforts, Mona has established a ground-breaking project that uses optical fibre systems for the detection and classification of active travel – a robust, scalable, and privacy-preserving method that informs smart city and transportation planning. She is the director of the ‘Digital Twins for Sustainable Development Goals’ research lab at QMUL, where she attracted the first multidisciplinary core team to further the studies in this area. Mona was awarded the title of N2Women Rising Star in Computer Networking and Communications in 2022. She is also a steering committee member of the IEEE Women in Engineering of the UK and Ireland affinity group. 
Dr. Aisha Abuelmaatti Lecturer at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, and the Programme Director for BSc (Hons) Computer Science with Management (ITMB), and the Deputy Programme Director for L7 Degree Apprenticeship. She is also a member of the Sustainability Committee and the Employability and Placements Committee. 
Prof. Maria Liakata Professor in Natural Language Processing at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, and in receipt of an EPSRC/UKRI Turing AI fellowship award on Creating Time Sensitive Sensors from Language & Heterogeneous User-Generated Content.
Dr. Michaela Macdonald  Lecturer in Management at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, specialising in Cybersecurity Law, IoT Product Development and Management and Product Development and Marketing.  
Dr. Julia Ive Lecturer in Natural Language Processing at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London.
Dr. Laurissa Tokarchuk Senior Lecturer at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London with research interest in Mobile and Location-Based Gaming, Data driven methods for HCI, Mobile Sensing, Social Computing, Social Sensing, Recommendation and Game AI. Research groups: Game AI, Cognitive Science and The Centre for Intelligent Sensing (CIS). 
Elona Shatri Research interest in Optical Music Recognition using Deep Learning and teaching expertise in machine learning and machine learning for visual data analysis. Research groups: C4DM 
Mojan Omidvar PhD in Self-driving laboratory automation
María José Barrera-Chávez is a Mexican Postgraduate Researcher and PhD Candidate at Queen Mary University of London. Based at DERI, her research is directed towards Computer Science applications in Sports Medicine. Inspired daily by her family and friends, María believes science, critical thinking, and analytical skills are fundamental to improving our environment. In her free time, she likes to hike, sing, and practice martial arts. Previously, María, known for her creative approach and attention to detail, worked as a manager and senior analyst for a digital marketing agency. She graduated from National Polytechnic Institute (Mexico) in Mathematic Engineering.

Contact 

Katja Ivanova e.ivanova@qmul.ac.uk 

Anna Xambo Sedo a.xambosedo@qmul.ac.uk  

How to get involved 

  • We are looking for members who would like to participate in the organisation, please, drop me an email if you are interested (e.ivanova@qmul.ac.uk).   
  • Please, join our mailing list at eecs-fan@qmul.ac.uk.  
  • You are also welcome to join our Teams "EECS Women in Higher Education Network". 

The logo

The logo reflects the values of diversity, equality, and community. The colour used is a dark violet with the value Hex: #46296E, RGB: (70, 41, 110), CMYK: (0.363, 0.627, 0, 0.568), used as the International Women's Day Color palette. The logo uses the font Compagnon by Juliette Duhé, Léa Pradine, Valentin Papon, Chloé Lozano, Sébastien Riollier (Velvetyne Type Foundry), which is a monospaced font listed on the Libre Fonts by Womxn directory. The logo has been featured on the Velvetyne - in use webpage.

 

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