EECS Women Higher Education Network (WHEN)
Mission
EECS Women in Higher Education Network (WHEN) can play a crucial role in establishing a strong community for individuals identifying as women and provide opportunities for exchange among academics at all levels – from PhD students to research assistants, postdoctoral fellows, to academics. The network will contribute to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion. Balanced gender representation improves working culture, supports a broader range of viewpoints and, therefore, leads to more creative ideas and innovation. This is particularly relevant for the fields traditionally underrepresented by women, such as computer science and engineering.
Our goal is to create an environment for open communication and collaboration, enabling our community to address current challenges and potentially influence policies and practices within EECS and the Science and Engineering Faculty. The network will also allow for more visible role models and mentors, particularly benefiting early-career academics.
WHEN has been featured as a case study for the newly created Gender Equality Directory of Good Practice and Research. Thanks for featuring it as part of the resource!
Vision
We are convinced that the most open discussions and natural professional collaborations occur with the bottom-up approach. Therefore, first, we plan to organise an initial participatory workshop to define the objectives and activities of the EECS WHEN. We will analyse the needs/expectations of academics regarding the EECS WHEN using professional moderation. This user-centred approach will address real challenges in the women’s research community. Within this event, we also plan to extend our core organising team by encouraging additional members to join. We will enable online access for all events for women who cannot participate in person but still need to benefit from the networking.
Second, we plan a series of networking events featuring speakers renowned in the field of Computer Science and Engineering. The talks will be followed by networking events, which provide an opportunity ffor informal discussions.
We are building this initiative with the support of the ERIC Fund (1st round 2023/24 & 2nd round 2024/25) as a pilot project, which can potentially develop further. In the future, EECS WHEN plans to expand its functions to include additional support for early-career academics and women mentorship programs for students.
Future Events
March 2025
Wed, 23 Apr 2025 12:00 - 15:30 BST - Byte Queens and WHEN present Byte Queen Networking Event: CV Workshops, networking with peers a panel session and FREE lunch! What else could a girl in tech ask for? Break into the industry with us. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via this Eventbrite event link.
Past Events
The network provides a series of workshops, seminars, and social events to enhance diversity and support women colleagues in EECS. Here are our highlights:
March Afternoon Tea Party - 18th March, 2025
Tue, 18 Mar 2025 14:00 - 15:00 GMT - WHEN Event: Afternoon Tea Party in March: Join us for a late celebration of International Women’s Day over tea, coffee, and delicious treats. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via this Eventbrite event link.
February Social Lunch in The Morgan Arms - 11th February, 2025
Thu, 11 Feb 2025 13:00 - 14:00 BWT - WHEN Event: February Lunch in The Morgan Arms: Join us for a fun afternoon of February at The Morgan Arms. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite event link.
WHEN Meetup at PL4.24 - 23rd January, 2025
Thu, 23 Jan 2025 16:30 - 17:30 BWT - WHEN Meetup: Lianganzi Wang (MSc student in Sound and Music Computing at Queen Mary University of London) presents the project Professional Website Dedicated to the Study of Women’s Art: HerART. Room: Peter Landin Building 4.24.
January Drinks in The Morgan Arms - 23rd January, 2025
Thu, 23 Jan 2025 18:00 - 20:00 BWT - WHEN Event: January Drinks in The Morgan Arms: Join us for a fun evening of January drinks at The Morgan Arms. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite event link.
December Drinks in The Morgan Arms - 5th December, 2024
Thu, 5 Dec 2024 18:00 - 20:00 BWT - WHEN Event: December Drinks in The Morgan Arms: Join us for a fun evening of December drinks at The Morgan Arms. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via our Eventbrite event link.
Pottery Class - 4th December, 2024
Wed, 4 Dec 2024 16:30 - 18:30 BWT - WHEN Christmas Event: Pottery Class: Join us for a fun pottery class during the WHEN Christmas Event - get creative and spend the evening with like-mided women!. Limited to 12 spots. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via our Eventbrite event link.
November Drinks in The Morgan Arms - 7th November, 2024
Thu, 7 Nov 2024 18:00 - 20:00 BWT - WHEN Event: Halloween November Drinks in The Morgan Arms: Join us for a fun evening of November drinks at The Morgan Arms. Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite.
October Drinks in The Morgan Arms - 3rd October, 2024
Thu, 3 Oct 2024 18:00 - 20:00 BST - WHEN Event: October Drinks in The Morgan Arms: Join us for a fun evening of October drinks at The Morgan Arms - the perfect way to kick off the fall season! Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite.
The fourth WHEN event -12th September, 2024
We’re excited to invite you to our Impact and Gravitas for Women course, a hands-on workshop focused on enhancing your communication skills. This session will provide you with practical strategies to communicate more effectively, handle challenging situations, and speak with confidence and authority. Whether you want to make your voice heard in meetings or showcase your expertise more effectively, this workshop will give you the tools you need to succeed. More info attached.
Details:
Date: 12.09.2024
Time: 10:00 - 12:30
Location: Room G2 Engineering
We hope you can join us! Please book your ticket to secure your spot here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/eecs-when-impact-and-gravitas-for-women-course-tickets-1012913560727?aff=oddtdtcreator
Please note: We have a very limited number of tickets for this session, as we’ve invited an external trainer for this unique opportunity. If you book and cannot attend, please let us know as soon as possible so we can offer your spot to someone else.
The third WHEN event - 6th & 7th June, 2024
We are thrilled to welcome Dr Eddie Dobson from the University of Huddersfield with a C4DM/WHEN talk (7 June) and a WHEN workshop (6 June).
Topic: Inclusion/engagement workshop in music technology education and reflections and broader implications
For the colleagues who identify as women, we will have a workshop with Eddie organised by the Women in Higher Education Network. In this workshop Dr Eddie Dobson will look at new research on engagement in music technology education, and possible implications for other STEM and STEAM disciplines.
Dinner: Following the WHEN workshop, we will gather at The Morgan Arms Pub at 6:30 pm (43 Morgan St, Bow, London E3 5AA) for a networking session with food and drinks.
Registration: Please register your attendance via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/when-social-dinner-with-eddie-dobson-tickets-915397076297
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C4DM & WHEN Talk by Eddie Dobson
Topic: A social psychology approach to fostering inclusion in music technology education
Date: Friday 7 June
Time: 11.00am-12.00pm
Location: Graduate Centre, Room GC601
Registration: This is a free event. Please register your attendance via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/c4dm-when-talk-by-eddie-dobson-tickets-915329815117
These events are part of the Pride Month 2024
The second WHEN event - 13th May, 2024
Date: Monday, 13th May
Time: 4:30pm
Location: Room 4.24, Peter Landin Building, Mile End Campus
Following the talk, we will gather at The Morgan Arms Pub at 6:30 pm (43 Morgan St, Bow, London E3 5AA) for a networking session with food and drinks, sponsored by the Network. Kindly RSVP to secure your spot as we will need to confirm the pub booking, you can do so by booking a ticket here:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/when-event-talk-by-professor-ying-tan-tickets-896277228317
The first WHEN event - 18th April, 2024
Organisers
| Dr. Katja Ivanova Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, with the main research interest in multimodal human-robot interaction and haptic communication between agents as part of user-centred robotics for medical applications. Research Groups: Cognitive Science, ARQ, C4DM |  |
| Dr. Anna Xambo Sedo Senior Lecturer in Sound and Music Computing at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, looking at designing and evaluating interactive music systems that support collaboration, participation, non-hierarchical structures and do-it-yourself (DIY) practices. Research Groups: C4DM |  |
| Antonella Torrisi PhD student at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London. My main research interest is bioacoustics, particularly the development of vocal interaction systems for studying animal communication. I am also the proud Social Media Assistant for WHEN. Research Groups: C4DM, Prepared Minds Lab |  |
Team
| Dr. Mona Jaber Senior Lecturer in IoT with the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London. Her research interests include zero-touch networks, the intersection of ML and IoT in the context of sustainable development goals, and IoT-driven digital twins. In this regard, she has published in the areas of sustainable energy, smart mobility, and privacy-preserving e-health. As part of her industry research collaboration efforts, Mona has established a ground-breaking project that uses optical fibre systems for the detection and classification of active travel – a robust, scalable, and privacy-preserving method that informs smart city and transportation planning. She is the director of the ‘Digital Twins for Sustainable Development Goals’ research lab at QMUL, where she attracted the first multidisciplinary core team to further the studies in this area. Mona was awarded the title of N2Women Rising Star in Computer Networking and Communications in 2022. She is also a steering committee member of the IEEE Women in Engineering of the UK and Ireland affinity group. |  |
| Dr. Aisha Abuelmaatti Lecturer at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, and the Programme Director for BSc (Hons) Computer Science with Management (ITMB), and the Deputy Programme Director for L7 Degree Apprenticeship. She is also a member of the Sustainability Committee and the Employability and Placements Committee. |  |
| Prof. Maria Liakata Professor in Natural Language Processing at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, and in receipt of an EPSRC/UKRI Turing AI fellowship award on Creating Time Sensitive Sensors from Language & Heterogeneous User-Generated Content. |  |
| Dr. Michaela Macdonald Lecturer in Management at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, specialising in Cybersecurity Law, IoT Product Development and Management and Product Development and Marketing. |  |
| Dr. Julia Ive Lecturer in Natural Language Processing at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London. |  |
| Dr. Laurissa Tokarchuk Senior Lecturer at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London with research interest in Mobile and Location-Based Gaming, Data driven methods for HCI, Mobile Sensing, Social Computing, Social Sensing, Recommendation and Game AI. Research groups: Game AI, Cognitive Science and The Centre for Intelligent Sensing (CIS). |  |
| Elona Shatri Research interest in Optical Music Recognition using Deep Learning and teaching expertise in machine learning and machine learning for visual data analysis. Research groups: C4DM |  |
| Mojan Omidvar PhD in Self-driving laboratory automation |  |
| María José Barrera-Chávez is a Mexican Postgraduate Researcher and PhD Candidate at Queen Mary University of London. Based at DERI, her research is directed towards Computer Science applications in Sports Medicine. Inspired daily by her family and friends, María believes science, critical thinking, and analytical skills are fundamental to improving our environment. In her free time, she likes to hike, sing, and practice martial arts. Previously, María, known for her creative approach and attention to detail, worked as a manager and senior analyst for a digital marketing agency. She graduated from National Polytechnic Institute (Mexico) in Mathematic Engineering. |  |
Contact
Katja Ivanova e.ivanova@qmul.ac.uk
Anna Xambo Sedo a.xambosedo@qmul.ac.uk
How to get involved
- We are looking for members who would like to participate in the organisation, please, drop me an email if you are interested (e.ivanova@qmul.ac.uk).
- Please, join our mailing list at eecs-when@qmlists.qmul.ac.uk.
- You are also welcome to join our Teams "EECS Women in Higher Education Network".
The logo
The logo reflects the values of diversity, equality, and community. The colour used is a dark violet with the value Hex: #46296E, RGB: (70, 41, 110), CMYK: (0.363, 0.627, 0, 0.568), used as the International Women's Day Color palette. The logo uses the font Compagnon by Juliette Duhé, Léa Pradine, Valentin Papon, Chloé Lozano, Sébastien Riollier (Velvetyne Type Foundry), which is a monospaced font listed on the Libre Fonts by Womxn directory. The network icon has been adapted from Network by Three Six Five from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0). The logo has been featured on the Velvetyne - in use webpage.
Download a WHEN logo zip file [4,956KB] with the logo in bitmap (png) and vectorial formats (svg, ai).
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