AdaLovelaceDay09

I am just back from my wedding and have a lot of catching up to do - notably I will respond to the eTech announcement of the Science Commons collaboration with Microsoft, and the small furor that my comment "there is no crowd" in science has caused. But first things first. I'm a day late posting but I wanted to make sure I got this in. Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. We are asked to blog about a female role model for us in technology. Mine's pretty easy. Diane Cabell. When I was a wet behind the ears kid masquerading as…
It's Ada Lovelace Day! Ada Lovelace (1815 - 1852) is often referred to as the world's first computer programmer. The daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron, and the admired intellect, Annabella Milbanke, Ada Lovelace represented the meeting of two alternative worlds: the romanticism and art of her father versus the rationality and science of her mother. In her attempt to draw together these polar opposites and create a 'poetical science' during the Victorian age, Ada collaborated with the renowned mathematician and inventor, Charles Babbage. (source) I'm betting famous names like Marie Curie…
For my Ada Lovelace Day post, I wanted to focus on someone who is doing interesting and interdisciplinary work in computer science, and whose work has interesting and important applications. Justine Cassell, Director of the Center for Technology and Social Behavior at Northwestern University, is just such a person. I first heard about Dr. Cassell's work in this article: Using "virtual peers" -- animated life-sized children that simulate the behaviors and conversation of typically developing children -- Northwestern University researchers are developing interventions designed to prepare…