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I’ve spent most of this week in the University of Bath with an amazing set of colleagues preparing then managing the UK’s main event for women computing students – the BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium. As founder and deputy I have a lot to do with the organisation but for personal reasons, this year I had to hand over much of the immediate admin to the rest of the team at short notice. So I am even more indebted to Safia Barikzai, Jacqui Chetty, Myles Dempsey, Jo Hyde and Amanda Clare than I normally am.  Bath CS went above and beyond in hosting, and this year weRead More →

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Nearly a decade ago I had a conversation with Clive King about setting up a TedX event in Aberystwyth. We’d both been mulling over the idea independently, and decided to pool our resources. With input from Mike Parker we pulled a programme together and navigated the various admin hurdles associated with using the TedX brand (there are a lot of guidelines to do with image and brand management, and rules about how the event should be managed, etc. etc.). Event number one was a success; we had a great lineup and the talks all made their way online eventually. After the first one I steppedRead More →

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Aberystwyth University held a mini-conference on generative AI last week, and Amanda Clare and I submitted an abstract. It’s safe to say that neither of us is embracing generative AI in the classroom, or in our work. Indeed I think we would both be classified as “generative AI resisters”. There are all sorts of reasons why people are enamoured with the current flavours of Generative AI on offer, and it’s been a useful thing for me to talk with Amanda and work out why exactly we find it so hard to embrace this new technology in our teaching. Looking around the conference it became clearRead More →

US THEM STUPID EVIL axis filled in with the different AI types

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On 22 November I presented at BSides Aberystwyth – my title was “AI powered scammers: Looking at four some new-ish types of threat” and the talk was a summary of my thinking about cybersecurity and AI. I teach cybersecurity and I have spent most of my adult life working in AI so I have a few opinions about both. This blog post is a summary of the arguments in my talk, in case anyone’s interested. Firstly, I think it’s important to set out some ‘ground rules’ when discussing this kind of thing and I am very cautious about attributing agency where there may be none.Read More →

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Last week we held the 18th BCSWomen Lovelace Colloquium, in Glasgow. It was the biggest ever, with about 275 people in total (and about 170 posters). On one level, it was the same as previous years (a one-day conference, with a keynote and some speakers, and a poster session, with a pre-event social the night before to stop students from feeling alone). On another level, though, there’s something qualitatively different about an event of that size. One thing is certain: it’s definitely no longer “my” conference. I’m student chair and Safia Barikzai (of LSBU) is the chair, and there’s a whole team of people aroundRead More →

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The final report from our gendered microaggressions project is available from the CPHC site: https://cphc.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Aberystwyth-CPHC_Microbehaviours_project_report.pdf We found all sorts of interesting things (read the report for the full story). Unsurprisingly: We propose a slightly modified taxonomy of microaggressions, adapted from Derald Wing Sue’s work on racial microaggressions. Our categories are:

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I’m trying out some gallery options for an artist, so thought I’d post some of my own paintings as a test. Here’s the default WordPress “Gallery” block – this is the least effort option:

Much of the Aberystwyth Contingent: Rebecca, Begum, Praboda, Me, Edel, Danniela, Abby, Joanna, Jasmine, Grace, Savannah and Tamzin (missing: Amanda and Anita)

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On April 4th, we held the 17th BCSWomen Lovelace. I’ve been running or co-running this conference for longer than I’ve been running this blog… so it’s time for an event report. There’s a few missing in my event report sequence as I started this blog in 2009 (after the first Lovelace), I didn’t make it to #3 in Cardiff 2010 (I was working in France at the time), and it seems like 2021 Lovelace didn’t get an event report on this blog even though it definitely happened (online). A well-run conference involves more work in the run-up than anyone could possibly think, and the LovelaceRead More →

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We (me, Clem Herman at the OU and Gillian Arnold of Tectre ltd) are running a short project on gendered microaggression in computing at University. We have run some focus groups and are now at the survey stage. SO! This post is to help advertise the survey, which you can fill in in English or in Welsh: https://openuniversity.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/gendered-microaggressions-survey https://aber.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/microymosodiadau-rhyweddol-mewn-adrannau-cyfrifiadura We’d like responses from students, as we’re interested in the current picture, but we’re also interested in the experiences of grads and staff. We ask about microaggressions you’ve experienced but also those you’ve witnessed. This means we want to capture responses from guys as well asRead More →

Bluebell wood

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I do quite a lot of drawing and painting (check out my insta) and quite often do courses to keep me on my toes and introduce me to new things. In the last five years or so I’ve done some… Most recently I’ve done a course on Digital Drawing online with Sarah Bowe which I am just submitting the final piece for. This is the course, if anyone is interested: https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/lifelong-learning/courses/course/details/CL109_XK15605/ The final piece (for me) looks like this and is a digital sketch of penglais woods in a sort of manga style. I’ve enjoyed the course on one level but I think I’ll stickRead More →