ACM-W Europe April 2023 Newsletter

 

In this issue:

 

womENcourage™ – Celebration of Women in Computing

Join us in Trondheim, Norway on 20-22 September 2023

 

womENcourage™ 2023 will take place at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, on 20-22 September, 2023. The theme of the conference is Computing Connecting Everyone. 

Poster, Workshop and Tutorial DEADLINE 1 May! Don’t forget to submit. Details here.

Keynote speaker: Prof. Alexander Serebrenik

Alexander Serebrenik is a full professor of social software engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands. His research goal is to facilitate evolution of software by taking into account social aspects of software development. His work tends to involve theories and methods both from within computer science (e.g., theory of socio-technical coordination; methods from natural language processing, machine learning) and from outside of computer science (e.g., organisational psychology). The underlying idea of his work is that of empiricism, i.e. that addressing software engineering challenges should be grounded in observation and requires a combination of the social and the technical perspectives.

Keynote title: Gender and Software Development

In this talk I will provide an overview of our research of diversity and inclusion in software engineering, focusing on gender diversity. Given a long-standing association of women and communication mediation, we have conducted a series of studies relating gender diversity to presence of suboptimal communication patterns known as ‘community smells’, as well as comparing the results of the data analysis with developers’ perception. To get further insights in the relation between gender and community smells, we replicate our study focusing on the Brazilian software teams; indeed, culture-specific expectations on the behaviour of people of different genders might have affected the perception of the importance of gender diversity and refactoring strategies when mitigating community smells. Next, we shift the gears and taking the intersectional perspective we focus on specific experiences of two groups of women in software engineering: transgender women and veteran women. 

 

Poster, Workshop & Tutorial submission due: 1 May 2023
Scholarship application due: 10 June 2023
Registration opens: 1 June 2023
Hackathon registration opens: 22 July 2023
Event Dates: 20-22 September 2023

This year in Trondheim, Norway will be the 10th edition! Please follow the conference website for updates throughout the year and details for participants.

 

5th Summit on Gender Equality in Computing – June 26-27 2023

The Summit aims at promoting gender-equal access to the computer-related scientific frontiers, encouraging and educating women and men in an equal way to achieve their goals and utilise their potential in digital professions.

The goal of the Summit is also to celebrate and disseminate the achievements of computer professionals in a fair and gender-equal way.

Τhe Summit brings together students, researchers, and professionals in the field of Computer Science to:

  • Present and share their achievements and experience in the computing field
  • Discuss and understand the reasons why there is gender disparity in individuals opting for Computer Science and Engineering
  • Consider and exchange views on gender stereotyping in Computer Science
  • Come up with incentives and measures to reduce gender inequalities in the field

Poster Abstract Due: May 12, 2023

Details here.

 

 

CHItaly – Turin, Piedmont, Italy – 20-22 September 2023

CHItaly is the Biannual Conference of the Italian SIGCHI Chapter. The theme this year is CROSSING HCI AND AI. 

Besides traditional HCI topics, CHItaly 2023 theme is to host debates on the intersection of HCI and AI as an emerging field of research, devoted mostly to Intelligent User Interfaces, i.e., interfaces developed using the approaches from HCI and the tools from AI. 

Main deadlines:

CALL FOR PAPERS due: April 14th, 2023
CALL FOR WORKSHOPS due: April 30th, 2023
CALL FOR DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM PAPERS due: May 31st, 2023
ALL FOR POSTERS AND DEMOS due: June 20th, 2023

Details here.

 

Blog Series

Telling our stories by Sandra Helen Husnes

Each year we meet incredible women at womENcourage™ celebrations. We ask womENcourage participants to tell their stories in blog posts. We continue 2023 with Sandra Helen Husnes, who studied Computer Science at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway and is passionate about diversity in computing.

“The keynotes, workshops, and panel discussions were informative and inspiring and gave us important insight into the diversity and inclusion issues in the technology field from many different perspectives. These new perspectives also inspired us to make a positive change in the technology field by increasing knowledge about intersectionality to help increase diversity and inclusion.”

The article is about her research on diversity, inclusion and equity and her experience as a poster author at womENcourage. Read the entire article on our blog.

 

womENcourage past chair – the importance of working together

We are acknowledging the milestone of 10 years of womENcourage with a series of blogs from past chairs who organised this event successfully so far. This month we have Andreína Francisco who was co-chair of womENcourage 2015.

“This was just such an unforgettable experience! And I think it’s probably all about the team. I had a good and supportive team who were truly committed to the event. There are many different ways to organise a celebration event, but it’s important to have people by your side. I remember that Virginia and I worked very closely with Bev Bachmayer and Reyyan Ayfer, and I think we wouldn’t have been able to make it without their trust and support.”

Read the entire blog here.

 

ACM-W Europe Social Media Highlights

Not on social media? Not a problem. In March 2023, our most popular post on Facebook were:

  1. The post about the ACM Europe Summer School to take place in Barcelona Spain.
  2. The blog from Amalia Cid Blasco who talked about her perspective on how to encourage women in computer science.
  3. The post about the Women’s Talk Marathon organised by CAU University of Kiel..

 

On Twitter, the top tweet was the post about the ACM Europe Summer School , and the top media tweet was the blog from Amalia Cid Blasco.

 

Like our ACM-WE Facebook page, follow us on Twitter (@acmweurope) or Linkedin to get the updates.

 

Announcements and News

Open PhD and Post-doc Positions

Interested in efficient data analytics and data-intensive software systems? There are 12 fully funded PhD positions to work with leading European researchers to advance the frontiers of data analytics systems.

The RELAX Doctoral Network is funded by the European Union and is part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – Doctoral Networks (MSCA-DN) programme. The network brings together 5 cross-disciplinary research groups (at Aarhus Un, Chalmers Un.-Gothenburg, National Technical Un. Athens,  Queens’s Un. Belfast, Trinity College Dublin) and 7 industry partners to train a new generation of industry-conscious thinkers and leaders who will influence the design and operation of future data analytics systems. It is a consortium of high-profile researchers from various universities, research institutions, and companies spanning 8 European countries (the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Greece, and the UK).

The opportunities are for promising young students to work on cutting-edge topics in data analytics systems and data-intensive software systems to address the question of how relaxing the semantics of data analytics can enhance the capabilities of data analytics systems, both functionally and performance-wise. To address this question, the RELAX doctoral network will offer a research platform and training program for the Fellows to study the interplay and interdependencies between data, algorithmic semantics, application domain considerations and performance characteristics of computing systems.

The alumni of MSCA-DNs have formed a vibrant community. Check their website for more information on the benefits of being part of a  MSCA-DN.

All 12 PhD positions are described in detail here.

There are different deadlines for applications for the different projects, the first deadline for applications  is the 7th of May 2023.

 

The Walter Benjamin Programme enables researchers in the postdoctoral training phase to independently conduct their own research project at a location of their choice. The project can be carried out at a research institution in Germany or abroad, with the host institution providing support for the project.

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is now expanding its existing funding measures for academics who have fled their home country by opening up the Walter Benjamin Programme with the aim of enabling this target group to become integrated into the German research system. In the current situation, this practical support measure for refugee researchers from all regions of the world is also an expression of solidarity with researchers from Ukraine as well as persecuted researchers from Russia. 

Deadlines: Proposals may be submitted at any time.

ACM Awards and Advanced Grades of Membership Deadlines

Each year ACM recognizes outstanding achievements of its members through awards that cover a spectrum of professional and technological areas and different stages of professional development. 

To learn more about awards, we recommend the article by the ACM President Cherri M. Pancake, who dispels some common myths about ACM Awards and Honors in the Communications of the ACM, August 2019. One of the myths is that the ACM Awards never honour people working outside North America. Prof. Pancake writes that even though nothing would make ACM committees happier than to recognise the achievements of people from around the globe, there are very few nominations. Source: Dispelling Common Myths About ACM Awards and Honors.

Call for ACM Senior Member Nominations
The Senior Member advanced grade of membership recognizes ACM members with at least 10 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership. Nominations are accepted on a quarterly basis. The deadline for nominations is March 3, 2023.
Students
Early Career
Mid Career
Late Career
Area-Specific, typically Mid to Late Career

For SIG-specific Awards, please visit here.

For ACM Advanced Grades of Membership, please visit here.

 

Thank you for joining us in recognizing the accomplishments of ACM Women in Europe and ensuring they are nominated for ACM Awards they deserve.

 

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