Who We Are: Wendy Hall
Wendy Hall is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, UK and is currently Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS). She was the founding Head of the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia (IAM) Research Group in ECS, which is now established as one of the leading research groups in computer science and is widely recognised as having made huge advances in intelligent information systems.
She has published over 350 papers in areas such as hypermedia, multimedia, digital libraries, and distributed information systems. Her personal research achievements range from the pre-Web Microcosm hypermedia system, to the development of Web-based link services. She is currently working on a range of prototype Semantic Web applications, and with the inventor of the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and others at Southampton, she is developing a new research initiative in the emerging field of Web Science.
She is currently Senior Vice President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a member of the UK Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology and a founder member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council. She is a Past President of the British Computer Society (BCS) and currently chairs the BCS Women’s Forum. She was recently elected as Vice President of the ACM. She is also a member of IW3C2 and was executive chair of the 15th International WWW conference in Edinburgh in May 2006. She is a non-executive Director of several companies and charitable trusts.
She was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday honours list in 2000, and became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the same year. She is also a Fellow of the BCS, the IEE, and the City and Guilds of London Institute and holds a number of honorary degrees.
The UK Fawcett campaign for equality between men and women, named her as an Inspiring Woman in 2005, and the UK Research Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology selected her as one of six world-class Women of Outstanding Achievement in SET in March 2006.
A longer biography is available at http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~wh
She was born in London in 1952 and was the first of her family (originally from the “east end”) to go to University.
Married to Peter Chandler, a plasma physicist and independent consultant, she now lives on the edge of the New Forest – an easy drive to the University of Southampton where she has been a member of academic staff since 1984. She met Peter while studying for her PhD in Pure Mathematics at Southampton. They both love travel and fit as many holidays as possible into their hectic schedules.
She lists her favourite hobby as shopping!