Girl Geek Dinner NL

Date: Thursday, 23 February, 2012
Time: 18:30-22:30
Location: KPMG (Laan van Langerhuize 1, Amstelveen)
Ticket: You pay 5 euros which you will get back if you turn up. So it is free! (including dinner, excluding drinks).
Reserving a ticket is possible until: Saturday, 18 February

Speaker Bio

Dr. Melanie Rieback is in charge of Citrix Vancouver, leading the engineering and technology strategy for XenClient Synchronizer. Before moving to Citrix, Melanie was a faculty member at the Free University of Amsterdam (in the group of Prof. Andrew Tanenbaum), where her RFID security/privacy research attracted worldwide media attention, appearing in the New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, UPI, Computerworld, CNN, BBC, MSNBC, and many other print, broadcast, and online news outlets. Melanie has received many awards for her work (Best Paper: IEEE PerCom, Best Paper: USENIX Lisa, NWO I/O Prize, VU Mediakomeet, ISOC Award finalist, Viva 400, ‘Women in ICT’ finalist: ICT Professional of the Year 2010), and has served as an invited technology expert for the American and Dutch governments. In a past life, Melanie also worked on the Human Genome Project at the Whitehead Institute / MIT Center for Genome Research, where she contributed to the 2001 ‘Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome’ paper in Nature.

More on Melanie Rieback.

Sponsor for AMS GGD #12

With a double-whammy of GGD meetings in September, Lynda Hardman kicked off the 11th Amsterdam Girl Geek Dinner with a frank and full account of her route through scientific research & business, with anecdotes and data to illustrate one of her own research projects. Female professors in science and technology are something of a rare breed in the Netherlands, currently hovering around 12% of total professorships held, but as both Hoofd Docente at University of Amsterdam and Head of the Information System research cluster at the Centrum for Wiskunde & Informatica, Lynda is a motivating, hard-working and enthusiastic example.

There are times in a career when we feel either pushed or pulled in different directions and this was a theme that Lynda returned to during her talk. Her firsthand account of experiences in both start-up companies and academia were interwoven with the tales of balancing family, social life and work - a topic that many in the audience could relate to. Whilst navigating her own career pathway, there were moments of being ‘pulled’ into appointments or tasks she wasn’t certain she was prepared for and there were times when she had to actively ‘push’ to achieve the goals she wanted to reach. It appears difficult to produce the definitive career guide for advising women in science and IT but Lynda’s frank and personal account of her research route was as good as any advice I’ve heard in the last 10 years and spoken with the warmth and wisdom of a valuable mentor!

(and for those of you needing reminders or just curious about her tips, take a look at her slides below)

Lynda’s slides are here.

Photos were taken by CWI photographer.

With many thanks to Google & CWI for sponsorship to make this event possible. And a final thankyou for the last year’s sponsorship to Getronics Consulting who have given invaluable and enthusiastic support to our dinners in 2010 and 2011!!

Date: Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Time: 18:30-22:30
Location: Zwarte Doos, Eindhoven (Map)
Ticket: 10 Euros, max. 50 people.

Bettina Speckmann • Necklaces, flows and cartograms: Algorithms for automated cartography

The field of cartography is concerned with the design of high-quality cartographic products, most often, maps. Obviously, the uprise of computer science has had a large impact on cartography. In the beginning, software that allowed the cartographer to manipulate the map facilitated the map design process. Nowadays, sophisticated computer procedures - algorithms - exist that can perform many of the tasks originally executed by cartographers.

Although the most commonly used maps are road maps and topographic maps, special purpose maps exist for conveying targeted information. Such maps usually focus on a single theme and visualize such diverse topics as the gross domestic product per country, the effects of pollution on the water quality, or the migration patterns of animals. Maps for these examples can be found, respectively, in newspapers, infrastructural reports, and biological studies.

In this presentation, Bettina will describe algorithms that automatically create several types of special purpose maps: necklace maps, flow maps, and cartograms.

See a video of Bettina as she explains her research interests.

Speaker Bio

Bettina Speckmann is an associate professor at the department of mathematics and computer science of the Eindhoven University of Technology (the Netherlands). She received her diploma degree in mathematics from WWU Münster (Germany) in 1996 and her PhD in computer science from the University of British Columbia (Canada) in 2001. She spent two years as a postdoc at the Institute for Theoretical Computer Science of ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and became an assistant professor at TU Eindhoven in 2003. Since March 2010 she is a member of The Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), and since March 2011 a member of the Global Young Academy. Bettina’s research interests include the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures, discrete and computational geometry, applications of computational geometry to geographic information systems, cartography, and graph drawing.

Simone Tobar

Abstract/Bio: Simone will discuss her 11-year career at ASML from process operator to process technician to team leader, while completing a computer science degree at the same time.

View Attendee List

We thank ASML for sponsoring this event.

Date: Tuesday, 13 September, 2011
Time: 18:30-22:30
Location: Lab111 (Arie Biemondstraat 111, Amsterdam)
Ticket: 20 euros (three course dinner, excluding drinks).
Buying a ticket is possible until: Saturday, 10 September

Abstract

Throughout my career I have worked with computers, not only using them, but developing them to support information tasks. While humans are the ultimate users of machines, there seems to be a communication barrier between those who program computers and those who use them. The main themes of my work have been communicating information using different media - how can information be communicated, and how can computers support this better?

Through most of my career I have been “pulled” into institutes and functions. Only recently have I had to start to “push”. How was I pulled, and why am I now pushing? Can I learn to push more effectively?

Through anecdotes of what I have done in various jobs and roles I hope to give an impression of working for more than 25 years in the rapidly changing world of computing technology.

Speaker Bio

Lynda Hardman is head of the Information Systems department at CWI (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica) and professor by special appointment of Multimedia Interaction in the Informatics Institute at the University of Amsterdam. She obtained her PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1998, having graduated in Mathematics and Physics from Glasgow University in 1982. During several years of working in the software industry she was the development manager for Guide - the first hypertext authoring system for personal computers (1986).

Her early experiences in industry with the development of hypertext authoring tools inspired her to investigate questions underlying combining time-dependent media (such as video) along with links. She was a member of the W3C working group that developed the first SMIL recommendation, which built on this work.

Since the development of the semantic web, she has worked on improving human access to the ever-expanding ‘open linked data cloud’. Her current research efforts are focused on improving design methods for human-based interfaces in relation to developing technology.

Lynda Hardman’s website.

Photo: Jeroen Oerlemans.

Sponsors for AMS GGD #11:

The Centrum for Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) , Amsterdam

For the summer months, we’re linking up with the organisation to promote inspirational, dynamic women in the Netherlands in science, IT and engineering. We need YOU to nominate yourself or email us the name of someone you think would be a great candidate to feature on NC4YW’s website! It could be a teacher of yours, a savvy Dutch businesswoman in the world of IT or a source of inspiration to you.

All you need to do is send us your name or that of the person you’re nominating and a contact email to organizers@girlgeekdinner.nl by the 20th June and with NC4YW, we’ll select profiles to feature on their website during July/August.

Don’t be shy - get nominating!!

Last Wednesday, 18th May 2011, a mere 7 weeks after GGD #9, Amsterdam Girl Geeks got together for dinner number 10, which was utterly enjoyed by all. We’ve received extremely positive feedback including emails from our male guests, full of kudos for such an informative and interesting evening!

Again, the 3-course-dinner served by Otto and team of Lab111 was delightful!

All the 39 attendees, including our sponsors, Getronics Consulting and Google enjoyed the networking opportunities prior and after the talk by Virginie Hager. Farrah Djohan of Google flew in all the way from London to attend the event!

We are happy to see and catch up with the familiar GGD faces and meet many new ones! Thanks for coming!

The young and attractive Virginie Hager, the first ever mechanical engineer in the Amsterdam Girl Geek circle, works at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk. She  took the audience by storm with her natural charm and presentation on the ins-and-outs of professional and personal life of the astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) with a special focus on the supply and delivery process to the ISS.

Virginie started with a short presentation on her background and motivations to join the space industry which was in itself fascinating, as Space and Aviation industry is definitely one of the industries in which females are under represented.

Virginie covered various areas of importance in space exploration and projects, the structural and composition of the various vehicles (launcher and transfer vehicles), the process of maintenance, refuelling, transfer of goods and the crucial role of the space station towards the common good of mankind. She also showed the video of the interior set-up and structure of the transfer vehicle as well as the launch of the 200th flight of Ariane 5, which was interesting for most of us who have not paid attention to the detail of such huge operations!

Through out the presentation, the audience was animated and interactive, with thought-provoking questions and exchanges on facts, which made the hour-and-half long session felt quite short! Fun was had by all!

On behalf of the Girl Geeks Amsterdam, we (Rhiannon, Marjon, Hendrike and Nina), thank Virginie for her participation.

In the meantime, if anybody is interested in helping Emily set the GGD Eindhoven events up, please get in touch! (leave a comment here).

We also welcome future speakers to come forward and share the fun at our next events! Please contact us if you wish to share your experience and knowledge with other girl geeks!

If you have enjoyed GGD #10, spread the good word and we hope to see you again (and new faces too) at our next dinner #11 in September!

Post written by Nina Aziz (nina@riddhi.biz) on behalf of the Organising Committee GGD Amsterdam.
Photos were taken by Johannes Hjorth.
A selection of Virginies presentation is here.

supply & delivery to the ISS

Date: Wednesday, 18 May, 2011
Time: doors open from 18.30, dinner starts at 18.45
Location: Lab111 (Arie Biemondstraat 111, Amsterdam)
Ticket: 20 euros (three course dinner, excluding drinks).
Subscription possible until: Friday, 13 May

Abstract

Since Yuri Gagarin’s first flight into space exactly 50 years ago, man has walked on the moon and lived for months at a time in the International Space Station. Who keeps the crew and their Space Station refuelled? And how do you make a delivery to the International Space Station?
Virginie Hager will be talking about her work at the Space Agency, including her current trip for a shuttle launch at NASA, Florida (!) and her work on part of the operational system to keep the International Space station and crew supplied with provisions.

Speaker Bio

Virginie Hager is a mechanical engineer at the European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk. She works in a team solving these supply and delivery issues into space with their Automated Transfer Vehicle for the International Space Station.

Check out this great video of Girl Geek Dinner #9 that Tom Verstraat made!

On the 28th of March 2011 behavioral geneticist Danielle Posthuma gave an excellent talk at the Girl Geek Dinner titled “Genetics of the mind - from supercomputers to schizophrenia”. Danielle was first attracted to the field of genetics by her interest in the differences and similarities between individuals - a topic which we think interests everyone regardless of whether they have a deep understanding of genetics! The things that make family and non-family members the same and what makes them different is an intriguing topic. The source of the individual variation is either genetic and/or as a result of the environment - the age old question of “nature or nurture?” However, teasing apart these possibilities is a difficult task due to the many and complex interactions between genes and environment.

Danielle started her talk with a fantastic overview of the history of genetics from Gregor Mendel through to Watson and Crick. I’m sure this helped those in the audience from different research fields to understand the more complex aspects of the research she spoke of later in her talk. She spoke of the progress that has been made in neuroscience through genetics in such diseases as Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s disease where it is known that a single or few genes are involved in the pathogenesis of the disease. But she also spoke of other aspects of brain function such as intelligence and mental illnesses such as schizophrenia which are known to be hereditary but involve many different genes. Danielle is making progress in gene finding for these complex traits by grouping genes in relation to their function within brain cells e.g. synaptic proteins or genes related to a particular neurotransmitter. Such complex studies looking at many genes in samples of 1000’s of individuals require a lot of computing power and so a supercomputer facility set up by Danielle is a critical component of her research team!

This Girl Geek dinner was the first for us and the friends that we attended the evening with. We all thought Lab111 was a great choice of a venue, as it provided a nice atmosphere for both the dinner and the fantastic talk that followed.  The 3 course meal was delicious and while the dinner conversation was dominated by geeky science talk, we also talked of other things such as the places in the world that science has taken us- the event was a great chance to interact with other female (and male) scientists.

Overall the Girl Geek Dinner was a great night out with a friendly environment and plenty of opportunities for learning and interaction with fellow geeks.

Danielle’s slides are here.

Photos were taken by Johannes Hjorth and Arthur de Smidt.

Post written by Juliette Cheyne and Ülkü Güner.

From supercomputers to schizophrenia

Date: Monday, 28 March, 2011
Time: 7-11 PM
Location: Lab111 (Arie Biemondstraat 111, Amsterdam)
Ticket: 20 euros (three course dinner, excluding drinks).
Subscription possible until: Saturday, 25 March

Danielle Posthuma’s website.