Wendy Hall becomes a dame
By Jess McCabe | 1 January 2009, 19:34
Wendy Hall has been made a dame, one of an extremely long list of people recognised in the New Year’s Honours List.
Not that I’m exactly keen on the whole concept of all these knighthoods and, um, damehoods (she has, after all, been made a dame “of the British Empire”).
But Wendy Hall definitely sounds like an interesting person - according to the BBC, she invented a forerunner to the internet:
Wendy Hall created the “open hypermedia system” Microcosm with colleagues after joining the University of Southampton computer science group in 1984.And in 1994 she became the university’s first female professor of engineering.
Professor Hall, 56, was made a CBE in 2000 for services to science and technology and is considered one of the best computer scientists in the world.
So good to see examples of women playing a key role in tech. But it’s also interesting that Hall has been actively involved in encouraging girls’ and women’s participation in her field (although I’ve not been able to find many examples on a quick search, of exactly what this has involved).
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Sabre said:
Go Wendy!
I've worked with Wendy before and she IS an interesting person, and very passionate about increasing the numbers of women in science and engineering. She has done it in various ways, working with a range of organisations like the British Computer Society, Royal Academy of Engineering and UK Resource Centre for Women in SET, and continues to do so.
Well deserved.
Posted on 10 January 2009 at 5:19 PM