Professor Sylvia Ratnasamy

Professor Sylvia Ratnasamy is a computer scientist specializing in networking who invented the distributed hash table, a way of efficiently storing data without requiring a central registry.

In her 2001 paper, “A Scalable, Content-Addressable Network”, Ratnasamy became the first person to define a scalable design for distributed hash tables (DHT), an essential element in large-scale distributed and peer-to-peer computing systems. Her paper is currently one of the most cited in the recent history of computer science.

DHTs optimise data storage across several locations or even geographies by splitting data into objects, and they are now used in many distributed datacenters and by cloud service providers. DHTs enables large enterprises, including big tech companies like Apple, Google and Facebook, to efficiently manage and distribute data in storage systems across the globe, while making it rapidly accessible wherever necessary. Without DHTs, today’s cloud services, file sharing services and social networks would be much more complex.

Ratnasamy’s later work improved scalability for peer-to-peer applications such as file-sharing and developed more effective connection topologies for DHTs. She also introduced OpenDHT, a public DHT service that makes it possible for any organisation to easily and quickly build their own distributed systems.

Ratnasamy is a professor at Berkeley University, where her research is in operating systems & networking. She was named one of IEEE’s N² Women: Star in Computer Networking and Communications in 2019, and was given ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award in 2014.

You can follow her work here:

Website: eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Homepages/ratnasamy.html

Further reading

• Sylvia Ratnasamy, Wikipedia
• Sylvia Ratnasamy, Association for Computing Machinery, 2014
• 2019 stars in computer networking and communications, N2Women

Can maths predict the future? – Professor Hannah Fry, 2014

Hannah Fry shows how maths can explain real world events. From crimes to relationships, patterns in numbers such as Benford’s law on the prevalence of numbers starting with 1′, help us predict the future.

Dr Hannah Fry is a Professor in the Mathematics of Cities at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at UCL, whose TEDx talk on the mathematics of love has been viewed over half a million times. She is the author of several books: The Mathematics of Love (2015), The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus (2017), Hello World (2019) and the recently released Rutherford & Fry’s Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (Abridged). She has presented numerous science TV shows for the BBC, and has hosted the BBC Radio Four show “The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry” with geneticist Dr Adam Rutherford since 2016.

You can follow her work here:

Website: https://hannahfry.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fryrsquared
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FryRSquared/
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/hannah-fry-9919361a2 

Recorded at, and sponsored by, The Royal Institution, you can watch the rest of the Ada Lovelace Day Live 2014 playlist here.

Dope Labs, Titi Shodiya & Zakiya Whatley

Hosted by best friends (and two of the dopest scientists you will ever meet), Titi Shodiya and Zakiya Whatley, Dope Labs is a podcast serving up scientific principles with a healthy dose of tea. From cuffing season to Cardi B, they take what’s trending and put it under the microscope with the help of some very smart (and cool) scientific friends. At Dope Labs, they believe science is “for errrrbody” and their mission is to bring out the inner scientist in YOU. 

Recent episodes include: 

• The sociology of celebration. Dope Labs explores the work of Mihai Stelian Rusu and Ismo Kantola and their three coordinates of celebration: temporality, spatiality, and sociality.
• Afrofuturism, science fiction, and horror with Dr Kinitra Brooks.
• Dr Marie Spiker talks about the US food system, from farm to fork to flush. Dope Labs talks about the various ways the food industry has to adjust when the demand changes.

You can follow their work here:

Twitter: @Dr_TSho, @Zsaidso and @dopelabspodcast
Website: www.titishodiya.com, zakiyawhatley.com

Creating inspiring science demos – Fran Scott, 2013

Fran Scott, a science communicator who designs demos for TV and live events, shows us what you can do with some water, a plastic bottle and a secret ingredient.

Fran is a science translator and demonstration developer, drawing on her knowledge to present science in a jargon-free, accessible and accurate way. She runs Great Scott! Productions, a science communication production company that runs bespoke workshops and demos. She writes regularly for National Geographic Kids, The Week Junior and Huffington Post, as well as contributing to numerous science books and kits aimed at kids.

Scott also designs demos for BBC live stage shows, DK books and the Science Museum.  She has designed demos for CBBC’s Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom, was the Engineering judge on Channel 4’s Lego Masters, and an expert on Abandoned Engineering. She is also a pyrotechnician and Science Content Producer at the Royal Institution.

You can follow her work here:

Website: https://www.franscott.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Frans_facts
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/franscottpresenter/
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/franscottpresenter

Recorded at Imperial College London and sponsored by the Biochemical Society, you can watch the rest of the Ada Lovelace Day Live 2013 playlist here.

Professor Omowunmi Sadik

Professor Omowunmi “Wunmi” Sadik is a Nigerian chemist and inventor who has developed an “electronic nose” – microelectrode biosensors that can detect trace amounts of organic materials and is used for detecting drugs and explosives. She has also developed a biosensor that can identify the presence of the HIV virus in a matter of minutes rather than the three-to-four days it takes with the ELISHA tests.

Sadik has developed methods for removing toxins such as organochlorine compounds from the environment, and is investigating ways to reclaim metal ions from industrial and environmental waste. Using microbial enzymes, she increased the conversion of highly toxic chromium (VI) to non-toxic chromium (III) from 40% to 98%.

Other research includes examining the whole lifetime impact of nanoparticles used commercially in products such as nano silver-impregnated socks. Silver nanoparticles are believed to have anti-microbial properties, but the consequences of exposure to these particles is poorly understood. Sadik is using conducting polymer membranes to trap or filter silver and other nanoparticles to help study how they behave in the environment and the human body.

Sadik co-founded and is currently president of the Sustainable Nanotechnology Organisation, a non-profit organisation which promotes the development and advancement of sustainable nanotechnology in all parts of the world. She was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2010 and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2012.

You can follow her work here:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/omowunmi-wunmi-sadik-1a8b009

Further reading

• Omowunmi Sadik, Wikipedia
• Omowunmi Sadik, Ph.D., Binghamton University
• Wunmi Sadik, New Jersey Institute of Technology
• Omowunmi Sadik, The History Makers, 10 July 2013
• Omowunmi Sadik, Africa Resource, 3 January 2014
• Meet Omowunmi Sadik, inventor of biosensors that detect bombs, Farida Dawkins, Face2Face Africa, 1 March 2018
• “My Father Was The First Person To Teach Me The Multiplication Tables”, Meet An Innovator – Professor Omowunmi Sadik, Science Communication Hub Nigeria, 8 March 2018
• Omowunmi Sadik, Physics Today, 19 June 2018
• How Omowunmi Sadik Keeps Breaking New Grounds In Scientific Research, Woman.NG, 7 July 2018