Women in STEM – Science Cabaret

Prof. Raffaella Ocone (Keynote)

Raffaella Ocone graduated in Chemical Engineering from the Università di Napoli, Italy and obtained her MA and PhD from Princeton University, USA. She holds the Chair of Chemical Engineering at Heriot-Watt University since 1999. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Institution of Chemical Engineers, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2007 she was appointed Cavaliere by the President of the Italian Republic. In The Queen’s 2019 New Year Honours she was appointed Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for services to engineering.

Raffaella was named as one of the top 100 Most Influential Women in the Engineering Sector in 2019 in the list produced by board appointments firm Inclusive Boards in partnership with the Financial Times. Raffaella was the first “Caroline Herschel Visiting Professor” in Engineering at RUHR Universität, Bochum, Germany in recognition of her work in ethics in engineering. Raffaella’s main area of research is in the field of modelling multiphase reactive systems with emphasis to the development of responsible technologies in the energy arena. She has taken the lead in the teaching of engineering ethics. Currently she is the EPSRC Established Career Fellow in Particle Technology.

Dr Marta E. Cecchinato

Marta E. Cecchinato is an Assistant Professor (Senior Lecturer) in the Computer and Information Sciences Department at Northumbria University. Her research is centred around the core vision of addressing challenges in how we work and live in the digital age, by understanding the problems, conceptualising strategies to help develop users’ digital resilience and wellbeing, and designing and evaluating digital solutions that empower users. In particular, she is interested in the impact technology can have on productivity, and has developed interventions around work-life balance and mental wellbeing for various stakeholders, such as students, knowledge workers, junior doctors, new parents, freelancers, and gig economy workers. More recently she has been studying the role that personal data plays when shared in work and family settings, with implication for privacy and agency.

In this talk, Marta will present on overview of how she stumbled into a career in Computer Science, despite coming from a background in Psychology, and emphasise the importance of having good role models and representation. Drawing on principles of data feminism, she will provide examples from her own research into family informatics and other work in data science on how data science and computing more generally needs feminism to challenge power and create a more equitable and just society.

Prof. Sophie Nixon

Dr Martine J. Barons

Martine Barons (CMath FIMA SFHEA Director of the Applied Statistics and Risk Unit, Department of Statistics, University of Warwick). After a career in Accountancy and bringing up her family, Martine embarked on an undergraduate degree in Mathematics where she discovered the power of mathematical sciences to improve people’s lives. A Master of Science and PhD followed. Martine now runs Warwick’s Applied Statistics & Risk Unit where she is tasked with encouraging and coordinating external partnerships which enable the early applications of theoretical, methodological and algorithmic developments in the department. Martine has extensive experience in working as an academic with business, industry and government partners. In this talk, Martine will showcase how joint model building can be harnessed to support decision-making to enhance insect pollinator abundance.

Dr Gozie Offiah