Women in Tech: UEA pro-vice chancellor on why we need women in the industry

By Brigette Currin 2 minute read

EASTERN DAILY PRESS

THE UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA’S PRO-VICE CHANCELOOR, PROFESSOR FIONA LETTICE, ON WHY WE NEED TO GET WOMEN INTO TECH:

UEA is proud to have many women from across the university working in tech-related areas, addressing a wide range of societal and business issues.

As a co-organiser of SyncNorwich, I actively support the local tech sector by organising regular meet-ups for tech entrepreneurs, and am involved in the annual Sync The City event held in November. Sync The City brings together professionals and students in a 54-hour hackathon with the aim of starting new tech businesses.

I am also a founding board member of TechEast, the collective voice of digital tech in the East of England, aiming to support businesses and drive economic growth within the sector.

UEA has a number of inspiring and innovative tech projects being led by women. We have recently pioneered the use of technology to help students to understand their emotions, develop coping strategies and access the support they might need when they start university.

Designed and developed by Dr Laura Biggart and Dr Kamena Henshaw from the School of Psychology, the OpenUpUEA app is underpinned by research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Students from the School of Psychology, School of Computing Sciences and Norwich Business School have helped to develop and test the app, which helps students to develop their own emotional resilience and improve their wellbeing. The team now aims to expand this fantastic work with other universities, colleges and schools.

Within the School of Computing Sciences, Dr Sarah Taylor has been working with Disney Research exploring computer vision and machine learning techniques to develop new techniques to automatically animate the faces and bodies of computer-generated characters.

Dr Beatriz de la Iglesia, a renowned expert in her field, specialises in research in data mining and has developed applications for a range of sectors including health, agritech, finance and education.

This is just a snapshot of some of the pioneering work being undertaken by women here at UEA. To find out more, head to www.uea.ac.uk/research.