The new pattern fixes a problem with Jemison’s neck, which as previously written turned out to be a little bit floppy. Unfortunately, this didn’t get picked up in testing, and I had thought that the reason my own test version was a bit floppy was just that I’m not an expert crocheter. But when I was designing Dr Eugenie Clark I made her neck quite a bit thicker, 18 stitches instead of 7, and that made it much more robust.
The differences in the pattern are the last two rounds of the head, and rounds 6 to 20 of the body (and both collar options).
Welcome to the Ada Lovelace Day podcast, highlighting the work of women in STEM. Each month, we talk to women from around the STEM world about their careers, as well as talking to women and men, about historic and modern women’s achievements, discoveries, and inventions.
In this episode
00:28: Zoe Kleinman talks about life as a tech reporter for the BBC.
26:40: We explore the contributions that women have made to the automotive industry, including safety and comfort features that we now take for granted!
30:55: Dr Paul Coxon from the University of Cambridge on the fascinating work of metallurgist Constance Tipper.
Our interviewees
Zoe Kleinman
Zoe Kleinman is a high profile BBC journalist and broadcaster, regularly seen and heard across BBC radio, TV and online.
From cybersecurity and hacking to artificial intelligence and driverless cars, Zoe brings tech and business stories to a mainstream global audience of millions across international radio, TV and online outlets including Radio 4’s Today programme and BBC World News.
She travels the world in search of the Next Big Thing – flying selfie-taking drones in the Nevada desert, spending the night in a house full of robots, being turned into a human beatbox, climbing Mount Everest (using virtual reality, in a hotel room in Las Vegas) and trying to survive for 48 hours using only Bitcoin on the Isle of Man – where she discovered it was easier to buy beer than breakfast.
Zoe is also a mum of two children and as a result can build pretty much anything out of Lego.
Paul Coxon is a physicist in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge. His research focusses on new materials for sustainable energy generation and battery devices. He is currently developing extremely black nano-surfaces to improve PV cells by increasing their ability to trap the full spectrum of the sun. He is a keen science communicator always eager to engage the public in the wonders of materials science. Frequently appears on radio and TV, and regularly contributes to popular science magazines and blogs on renewable energy, solar photovoltaics, energy materials and storage. He can be found on Twitter at @paulcoxon.
Paul was talking about Constance Tipper, a metallurgist, crystallographer, and the first woman to be appointed to the Department of Engineering at Cambridge. She was interested in metals and how the crystalline structure affected their strength and mechanical properties. She made her name in helping understand why the all-welded “Liberty Ships” which fed Britain and Europe during WW2 kept failing and splitting in two.
Discovery of the month
We talk about some of the inventions that have made our motoring lives safer and more comfortable, including the windscreen wiper, turn and brake signals, and the car heater.
Thanks to our sponsor
This podcast is brought to you thanks to the generous support of ARM, our exclusive semiconductor industry sponsor. You can learn more about ARM on their website at ARM.com and you can follow them on Twitter at @ARMHoldings.
If you would like to join ARM as a sponsor of the Ada Lovelace Day Podcast, please email us.
Get in touch!
If you’d like to send us feedback about the show, or if you’d like to take part, please email us. We’re especially interested in hear from men who would like to talk to us about the women in STEM who have influenced them, especially those women who are less well known.
Welcome to the Ada Lovelace Day podcast, highlighting the work of women in STEM. Each month, we talk to women from around the STEM world about their careers, as well as talking to women and men, about historic and modern women’s achievements, discoveries, and inventions.
In this episode
00:38: Dr Raychelle Burks tells us about the challenges of making field-ready and affordable chemical sensors and how tricky it is to accurately analyse the colours in photographs.
23:45: Why is it so hard to tell the stories of women’s discoveries and inventions?
27:46: Anne Locker, the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s Library and Archives Manager, talks about the life and work of Margaret Partridge, an electrical engineer whose company installed electric lighting and power in Devon.
Our interviewees
Dr Raychelle Burks
Dr Raychelle Burks is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at St. Edward’s University. Her research focuses on the development of detection methods for a wide variety of drugs and explosives.
Beyond the bench and classroom, she is a popular science communicator. She appears on the Science Channel’s Outrageous Acts of Science and in ACS Reactions videos, plus writes a monthly forensic science column for Chemistry World, the magazine of the Royal Society of Chemistry. A passionate STEM outreach advocate, she is the creator and manager of GeekGirlCon’s DIY Science Zone.
Anne Locker
Anne Locker is head of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s Library and Archives. She has worked extensively on the history of engineering and electrotechnology, and has a particular interest in the history of women in engineering and technology and the introduction of domestic electricity into the modern home.
For more information on the IET’s Library and Archives collections, including the archives of the Women’s Engineering Society, please visit theiet.org/library.
In this episode, Anne talks about pioneering electrical engineer Margaret Partridge (right), who in the early 20th century ran a business installing electric power and lighting to houses and villages in rural Devon. Partridge was a keen supporter of women in engineering, taking on many as apprentices. She also lectured at the Electrical Association for Women, co-authored The Electrical Handbook for Women, and contributed to the EAW’s journal, The Electrical Age.
Discovery of the month
This month, we explore some of the challenges we’ve faced when researching women’s inventions and discoveries, and why it’s so hard to tell some of these stories.
Thanks to our sponsor
This podcast is brought to you thanks to the generous support of ARM, our exclusive semiconductor industry sponsor. You can learn more about ARM on their website at ARM.com and you can follow them on Twitter at @ARMHoldings.
If you would like to join ARM as a sponsor of the Ada Lovelace Day Podcast, please email us.
Get in touch!
If you’d like to send us feedback about the show, or if you’d like to take part, please email us. We’re especially interested in hear from men who would like to talk to us about the women in STEM who have influenced them, especially those women who are less well known.
Our friends at Digital Science love to nurture innovative research software ideas and are looking for ideas for software or apps that could help benefit scientific research or make life easier for researchers themselves. Past ideas have included software to look for patterns in vast data sets without human intervention, software to speed up the processing of neurological test results, and a tool that allows scientists to interact with the data in scientific papers.
If, as a researcher, you’re frustrated by a problem that you know you could fix with an app or software, or if you’re a software developer with friends in science who keep mentioning a problem that you think you could solve if only you had the cash to develop it, then the Catalyst Grant is for you. Ada Lovelace Day was awarded this very grant in 2015, which then allowed us to develop our resources database for women in STEM! So we can say from first-hand experience that you won’t just get cash from this grant, you’ll also get support and advice if you need it.
The next application deadline is 30th June 2017 so there’s no time to lose. (Though if you do miss this one, they give out two grants a year and the next deadline is in December).
You can find out more about the Catalyst Grant on the Digital Science site, and if you have any questions about submitting then don’t hesitate to get in touch with the Catalyst Grant team via catalyst@digital-science.com.
Welcome to the Ada Lovelace Day podcast, highlighting the work of women in STEM. Each month, we talk to women from around the STEM world about their careers, as well as talking to women and men, about historic and modern women’s achievements, discoveries, and inventions.
In this episode
00:46: Dr Jess Wade explains plastic electronics and how they are revolutionising solar power generation, amongst other things.
30:45: We explore Hedy Lamarr’s invention of frequency hopping, a technique for protecting a radio signal by rapidly changing which frequency it is transmitted on, spreading the signal out over a wide band of the radio spectrum.
34:17: Author Robin Sloan talks about the work of Ann Leckie, her award winning book, Ancillary Justice, and how fiction inspires science.
Jess is planning a series of wikithons across the country for summer 2017, adding the stories of inspiring women in chemistry that have been lost to old journals and archives. If you’d like to take part, do get in touch with her.
Robin Sloan is an American best-selling author whose first novel, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, hit the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list and the NPR Hardcover Fiction Bestseller List in 2012.
Between 2002 and 2012, Robin worked at Poynter, Current TV, and Twitter, and says that his job “had something to do with figuring out the future of media”. He is “interested in content (words, pictures, ideas) who also experiments with new formats, new tools, and new technology”.
Robin was talking about science fiction author Ann Leckie, whose first novel, Ancillary Justice, won the Hugo, Nebula, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award. She then went on to write two sequels to Ancillary Justice: Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy. You can follow her on Twitter @ann_leckie.
Discovery of the month
This month, we explore the invention of frequency hopping, a technique for protecting a radio signal by rapidly changing which frequency it is transmitted on, spreading the signal out over a wide band of the radio spectrum. Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr and her collaborator avante-garde musician George Antheil were awarded a patent for their “Secret Communications System” in 1942, and it now underpins many communications technologies.
Competition winner
In March, we had a signed copy of Dr Helen Czerski’s Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life, to give away. In this, her newest book, Helen uses physics to answer some vexing questions, such as why does it take so long for ketchup to come out of a bottle? And, how do ducks keep their feet warm when they’re walking on ice?
We are happy to announce that the very lucky winner is Kirsty Burridge! Congratulations Kirsty!
If you want to see Helen talking about her book and her work, then get yourself along to the Hay Festival on 27 May, Cheltenham Science Festival on 7 June, or the British Humanist Association Convention on 10 June. More details on Helen’s website!
Thanks to our sponsor
This podcast is brought to you thanks to the generous support of ARM, our exclusive semiconductor industry sponsor. You can learn more about ARM on their website at ARM.com and you can follow them on Twitter at @ARMHoldings.
Get in touch!
If you’d like to send us feedback about the show, or if you’d like to take part, please email us. We’re especially interested in hear from men who would like to talk to us about the women in STEM who have influenced them, especially those women who are less well known.
If you downloaded the Dr Mae Jemison crochet pattern, then you’ll want to download the new, corrected version before you get started!
Zoe Kleinman
Paul Coxon is a physicist in the 
Paul was talking about Constance Tipper, a metallurgist, crystallographer, and the first woman to be appointed to the Department of Engineering at Cambridge. She was interested in metals and how the crystalline structure affected their strength and mechanical properties. She made her name in helping understand why the all-welded “Liberty Ships” which fed Britain and Europe during WW2 kept failing and splitting in two.
Dr Raychelle Burks is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at St. Edward’s University. Her research focuses on the development of detection methods for a wide variety of drugs and explosives.
nne Locker is head of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s Library and Archives. She has worked extensively on the history of engineering and electrotechnology, and has a particular interest in the history of women in engineering and technology and the introduction of domestic electricity into the modern home.
In this episode, Anne talks about pioneering electrical engineer Margaret Partridge (right), who in the early 20th century ran a business installing electric power and lighting to houses and villages in rural Devon. Partridge was a keen supporter of women in engineering, taking on many as apprentices. She also lectured at the Electrical Association for Women, co-authored The Electrical Handbook for Women, and contributed to the EAW’s journal, The Electrical Age.
Dr Jess Wade is a post doctoral researcher in the Department of Physics and Centre for Plastic Electronics at 
In March, we had a signed copy of