A number of our students have won top prizes at the annual Lovelace Colloquium.
The Lovelace event is aimed at increasing female participation in computer sciences, and attracts over 100 students each year from across the country for a day of lectures, competitions and inspirational key-note talks from successful women working in the sector.
This year’s event was held in Nottingham, and eleven students from Bath attended. Between them they displayed ten posters, which was more than any other UK university.
Computer Science student Roseanna McMahon won the Google Excellence Award for Best First Year Poster, and a prize of £500 for her poster on code-breaking in World War II from the German perspective. She said: “To enter we had to submit a 250 word abstract on a subject of our choice, and if successful we were invited to make a poster continuing the subject which we displayed at the colloquium.
“The posters were judged by a selection of women from BCS and employers who were attending the conference too, and the sponsor for the first year was Google. I was incredibly lucky to win the first year prize which was the Google Excellence Award and I am delighted about my success!”
The first prize for the Year 2 poster, £300, was awarded by the HEA to MMath student Carys Williams. Carys said: “My poster was on Post Quantum Cryptography, which is a potential future cryptographic system. After the invention of a large scale quantum computer, which would be capable of breaking RSA and many other systems in common use today, we would need a new form of cryptography.
“Post Quantum Cryptography is one of these proposed Systems. I researched the advantages and disadvantages of such ciphers, and specifically the factors which prevent the wide scale uptake of these today.”
Alex’ Dung Kim Hoang Tran, whose final year Computer Science project and poster was on graphics, won second prize of £200 in the Final Year category.
Alex said: “My poster looked specifically at how to add a rain effect onto digital photographs being taken under non-rainy conditions in a realistic manner.
“I love the fact that the Lovelace talks were not only about technical topics but also about the experience of others and advice on working in IT industry as a woman. I would totally recommend female students to attend such event.”
Dr John Power, who has supported the Lovelace event from Bath for a number of years, said: “Having a consistently high number of students from Bath attend this event is excellent for both our department and the future of computer science. I congratulate all of our students, especially those who won awards in Nottingham.”
Professor Phil Willis, Head of our Department of Computer Science, said: “The Lovelace event is an excellent opportunity for female students to network and be inspired by some of the best in the sector. Everybody appeared to thoroughly enjoy the day and find it a highly useful opportunity to explore the perspectives of women working in computing.”
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