ALD23: Dr Valeria de Paiva, Mathematician and Computer Scientist

Dr Valeria de Paiva

Dr Valeria Correa Vaz de Paiva is a Brazilian mathematician, logician, computer scientist and computational linguist who introduced the concept of dialectica spaces, a way of modelling the linear logic that is used in advanced programming languages. She has spent many years working in industry at major natural language processing (NLP) labs, ensuring that “language technologies are taken seriously by the AI scientists and engineers and conversely that the engineer’s concerns are heard by the linguists.”

De Paiva grew up in Rio de Janeiro and initially started university studying both journalism and law. After moving on to physics, she eventually realised that what she “liked in physics was the mathematics underlying it”.

She earnt her PhD in mathematics from the University of Cambridge in 1988. Her thesis defined the concept of dialectica spaces, a new way of constructing models of linear logic, a logical form that has been influential in fields including linguistics, programming languages and quantum physics.

Since 2020, De Paiva has been the principal research scientist at the Topos Institute in Berkeley, California, a mathematical and computer science research lab that aims to “advance the sciences of connection and integration by looking at the mathematical frameworks of computation”. She is also a council member of the the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science And Technology with the title Ambassador of Logic, and a lecturer in introductory logic and specifications at Santa Clara University.

Previously, De Paiva worked at top industry NLP labs in the US, including at Samsung Research America, Nuance, Deem, Cuil and Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). She was also a professor of theoretical computer science at the University of Birmingham in the UK and lectured at Stanford University.

De Paiva’s mathematics research involves work on logical approaches to computation, especially applying category theory (the study of mathematical structure and abstraction) to the logics of language. Among many other strands of logic, she has also worked on knowledge representation – how knowledge can be expressed in a computer-readable manner – and natural language semantics, or the study of grammatical meaning in human language. Her goal is to “build logics that reflect the way language is used”.

Encouraging more women into STEM fields, particularly logic, is a key priority for de Paiva. She plays a key role in Women In Logic (WIL), an organisation working to help foster gender parity in the heavily male-dominated field. De Paiva organised the first WIL workshop in Iceland in 2017 and maintains the organisation’s online presence. She also supports the ACM-W Scholarship programme, which enables women undergraduate and graduate students in computer science and related fields to attend research conferences. Her blog, Logic ForAll, aims to make the subject more accessible.

Her goal, she has said, is to build logics that reflect the way language is used and dealt with, “and whose proofs provide traces that make it understandable by people”.

Twitter: @valeriadepaiva
Website: vcvpaiva.github.io

Further Reading

Written by Moya Crockett, with thanks to Stylist for their support.

A century of women at the Royal Institution

The Ri is celebrating 100 years since Joan Evans gave the first presentation by a woman, making it the perfect venue for the 15th Ada Lovelace Day.

This year is marks the 100th anniversary of the first presentation by a woman at the Royal Institution – archaeologist Joan Evans, who was an expert in English jewellery from the fifth to the 17th centuries, gave a Discourse in June 1923 titled “Jewels of the Renaissance” – making it the perfect setting for the 15th celebration of Ada Lovelace Day!

Ada Lovelace herself attended lectures at the Ri, in the very theatre where ALD 2023 will be taking place this year and the same theatre where Michael Faraday first demonstrated many of his discoveries. The Ri is still home to his original laboratory and his collection of notes, which are preserved as part of their internationally significant collection, on display in the Ri’s free museum.

Lovelace was keen to receive tutelage from Faraday, writing to him several times, and their letters can still be seen today at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). Sadly for Lovelace, Faraday declined her request.

The Ri is not just a home for science where everyone is welcome, it continues to champion the known and unknown contributions of women to science. It has hosted many amazing female speakers, including:

And if that’s not enough inspiration, the Ri has this compilation of 10 mind-blowing science talks by women.

Notable members and fellows of the Royal Society include Katherine Lonsdale, a pioneering scientist, especially known for her groundbreaking work on x-ray crystallography, who worked at the Ri at numerous points throughout her career; Angela Burdett-Coutts, “the wealthiest woman in England after Queen Victoria” and campaigner for children’s education, whose application was signed Michael Faraday; and Agnes Clerke, renowned astronomer and author of A Popular History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century.

If podcasts are more your speed, then try these two episodes: Tackling climate change with innovation features the Ri’s Director Katherine Mathieson in conversation with Alyssa Gilbert, the Director of Undaunted, a partnership with Imperial College London that supports climate-positive startups; How did patriarchy develop across the world?, in which award-winning science journalist Angela Saini and former Australian prime-minister Julia Gillard discussed the roots of gendered oppression.

The Ri has long championed women in science and it’s an honour for Ada Lovelace Day to be returning to the venue for the third time with our science cabaret, featuring some of the smartest and most innovative women in STEM from across the UK: Prof Jennifer Rohn, urologist; Dr Anjana Khatwa, Earth scientist and presenter; Dr Sophie Carr, mathematician; Dr Aarathi Prasad, writer, broadcaster, and geneticist; Dr Azza Eltraify, senior software engineer; Dr Antonia Pontiki, biomedical engineer; Rosie Curran Crawley, presenter.

Join us in person or online, on Tuesday 10 October for seven fascinating talks that will entertain, inform and surprise you.

Ada Lovelace Day is back on 10 October 2023!

Thanks to generous support from The Royal InstitutionStylistRedgate, The Information Lab’s Data School and dxwAda Lovelace Day Live 2023 will now go ahead on the evening of Tuesday 10 October.

The Royal Institution will be hosting ALD Live as part of their autumn program of public events, and Stylist have come on board as our media partner, providing outreach and promotional support.

“We’re delighted to be hosting this year’s Ada Lovelace event at the Royal Institution,” said Katherine Mathieson, Director of the Royal Institution. “We’re looking forward to welcoming a wide range of people on the day, in-person and online, to meet and celebrate some inspirational women working in computing and technology. It’s a perfect fit for our mission of bringing people and scientists together to celebrate their interest and passion for science. We’re a home for science and everyone is welcome.”

“When we heard that Ada Lovelace Day was under threat we wanted to help save it,” said Lisa Smosarski, Editorial Director at Stylist. “As a champion of gender equality, we had always admired the day as a truly authentic way of championing women in STEM and for showcasing the pioneering work of women like Ada. Considering women are still hugely underrepresented in this field, this day is still very important and much needed. By adding the Stylist brand network and influential audience, we’re thrilled the day will run in 2023 and for many more years to come.”

Over the next twelve months, we will be working hard to build an Ada Lovelace Day that can serve women and girls in STEM long into the future. As part of that work, we are relaunching our newsletter on Substack, where we’ll keep you up to date on Ada Lovelace Day news, as well publishing profiles of women in STEM and highlighting books and podcasts by and about women in STEM. We will also have a membership option for those who would like to support us financially, so sign up now and pledge your support. We do still need additional sponsors, so if your company wants to get involved, drop Suw Charman-Anderson a line.

We are delighted to be back and we hope you’ll join us at the Royal Institution in October for a fascinating and entertaining evening featuring seven women in STEM who will share their experiences, insights and expertise and whose stories we hope will inspire and empower the next generation.

Do you have an ecological #FieldworkFail you’d like to share?

We are looking for ecologists to share their experiences of working in the field as part of our Fieldwork short comedy film project. If you’d like to take part, you can either do so by answering some or all of the questions in the form below, or you can arrange an hour-long interview with Suw – just pick a convenient date and time via Calendly.

Introducing Fieldwork

Everything you need to know about our latest creative project.

If you’ve ever been on a science field trip, you’ll know that, in amongst the experiments and data gathering, things can go hilariously wrong. The longer you spend in the field, the more likely you are to have had animals carry off your equipment, experienced unexpected malfunctions, or seen creatures other than your target species appearing in your camera traps.

We are collecting examples of #fieldworkfails from ecologists, particularly in the UK, and listening to their experiences of working in the field to inform the development of a comedy drama. The first output will be a short film script, which Suw Charman-Anderson will be writing, but we may also use data collected as the basis for other outputs, including this newsletter.

Our aims are both to entertain and to increase awareness of ecology as a subject and as a career path. Television and film can have a powerful effect on people’s perceptions of a subject. The X-Files inspired a generation of women to become interested in science, technology, engineering and maths with what is now known as The Scully Effect. Bones encouraged women into science, as has Black Panther’s Shuri.

Can we do the same for ecology?

Our new Fieldwork newsletter

I’m going to be chronicling the entire process of writing and making the Fieldwork short film here on the ALD blog and also in a Substack newsletter. I’ll talk about my background research, possibly sharing some snippets from my interviewees, and exploring life in a field station.

I’ll also be sharing my journey into the world of comedy writing, delving into the complexities (or simplicities) of character, structure and joke writing. I dabbled in stand-up comedy many years ago, so this isn’t entirely new to me, and I’m very excited by the idea of re-finding my funny.

If you’re interested in comedy writing, then this project is very definitely for you.

I’m an ecologist! Can I take part?

Yes, you can! Just drop me a line and I’ll let you know when our online survey and interview schedule is ready.


Fieldwork is part of the International Collaboration on Mycorrhizal Ecological Traits, organised by the University of York, University of Edinburgh, Dartmouth College and Ada Lovelace Day. It is funded by the National Environment Research Council (NERC), Grant Number: NE/S008543/1.


Subscribe to Fieldwork on Substack

If you’d like to follow this project, you can subscribe to Word Count, Suw’s creative writing newsletter on Substack, a hybrid email newsletter/blog publishing service which we are using as part of our program of public outreach.
Word Count has four sections: a weekly writing newsletter, plus Essays, Fiction and Fieldwork. When you subscribe, you’ll be able to control exactly which emails you receive, so if you only want news about Fieldwork, you can unsubscribe from the other three sections.
Subscribing to a single section in Substack can be a little bit fiddly, but you only have to do it once.
  1. Visit https://wordcounting.substack.com/s/fieldwork.
  2. Put your email address in the box and click Subscribe.
  3. Pick your subscription plan. A free plan is available.
  4. Skip the recommendations by clicking Maybe Later, or choose which additional newsletters look interesting to you.
  5. Select which newsletter sections you’d like to receive, eg, untick Fiction and Essays if you do not wish to receive those emails.
  6. Click Continue, then either share to Twitter or untick the box and continue.
  7. If you’re not already a Substack member, create a sign in.
  8. Visit your settings at https://wordcounting.substack.com/account and unselect Word Count: Mews, News & Reviews if you do not wish to receive Suw’s weekly writing newsletter.

You can also follow us on Twitter at either @suw or @iCOMET_York.