Ada Lovelace Day 2015 at York University: 26th & 29th October 2015

Ada Lovelace Day YorkUAda Lovelace Day was launched in 2009, by Suw Charman-Anderson, as way of drawing attention to and celebrating the under-appreciated contributions of women to STEM fields: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

I first came across Ada Lovelace Day in 2013, when I added a post to the international map (below right), about one of my female mentors, Professor Emerita Judy Myers of the University of British Columbia.

dawn ada lovelace 2013 map post 2Two years after John Dupuis of the Steacie Science and Engineering Library, and I first chatted about holding a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at York University, to celebrate International Ada Lovelace Day, it's going to happen on Thursday 29th October. We have arranged the Edit-a-thon as a drop in session at Steacie Science Library 10am - 5pm.

Ada Lovelace Day - Imogen YorkUI'm late with my October 1st blog post, but, I AM still one day ahead of  this year's official Ada Lovelace Day which is Tuesday 13 October 2015.

We decided to hold the Wikipedia Edit-a-thon during our co-curricular week at York University because we hope to make our event more accessible for students from across the university with an interest in women's history and in in STEM. The idea of the Edit-a-thon is for students both to learn about women in STEM and also, about how to create Wikipedia pages.

201210121_ScienceDean_0439Earlier in the week, on Monday 26th October 1:30-2:30 pm, in the new Bergeron Centre for Engineering Excellence, 217, Science Dean Imogen Coe of Ryerson University will be talking about current challenges to getting more women to enter STEM programmes, with a talk on STEMinism. Below, you can hear her greetings video from our March 2015 celebration of York University's female STEM alumni.

Advice to young #STEM students from Science Dean Imogen Coe, Ryerson University, Toronto from Dawn Bazely on Vimeo.

We look forward to seeing lots of YorkU students during our celebration of Ada Lovelace Day 2015.

P.S. I'm late with my blog this time, for a different reason than I was during this past summer of recovering from my unexpected and most annoying back injury. Rather, all the work that I parked over the summer is now catching up with me: unfinished analysis, writing and reviewing, field work that got shelved, student supervision etc. etc.

On the upside, one benefit of all my rehab and recovery, is that I now have the best posture that I have ever had in my life!