ALD News: Announcing our final speaker! Worldwide events in the UK & NZ
Plus a reminder of our awesome line-up, Ada Lovelace on Countryfile, and more!
Hi there,
There’s just one month to go until Ada Lovelace Day Live at the Royal Institution and we are so excited by the talks our amazing speakers have lined up. If you’ve ever thought about coming, either in-person or by watching the livestream, this year is definitely the year to do it!
Don’t forget to come as soon as doors open at 6:30pm so that you can grab a drink at our cash bar, browse Newham Bookshops stall, and get children’s author Lisa Rajan to sign a copy of one of her books, perhaps Tara Binns - Bright Spark Scientist. It’s a great opportunity to do some very early Christmas shopping!
Announcing our final speaker — Mamta Singhal MBE
Mamta Singhal MBE is a chartered design engineer whose 20 year career has spanned the toy, snack and drinks industries. She was awarded an MBE for services to engineering in 2022.
As a global design engineer at Hasbro, she worked on Playdoh, Monopoly and Action Man. At Mars, as a senior scientist and project packaging manager, she worked on brands such as Galaxy, Twix, Bounty and M&Ms. And at Mattel, as a project quality engineer, worked on the Barbie, Hot Wheel and Fisher Price brands. She’s also worked in the drinks industry, for Coca-Cola European Partners and then Diageo plc.
The full and utterly awesome line-up
Tickets are available now, whether you want to come along in person or watch online, so make sure you get yours now, before we sell out!
Ada Lovelace Day Live will be compèred by the fabulous science presenter Dr Sally Le Page, and features:
Dr Evgenia Ilyinskaya — Fire saga: Is Iceland at the doorstep of centuries-long volcanic eruptions? Evgenia is a volcanologist at the University of Leeds who researches volcanic emissions of gases and aerosols, and their impacts on air quality, the environment and people’s wellbeing. She’ll be talking about the recent series of volcanic eruptions near the Icelandic town of Grindavík.
Mamta Singhal MBE — Engineering a rubber duck. Mamta is a chartered design engineer whose career has spanned the toy, snack and drinks industries, working on toys such as Playdoh, Action Man and Barbie. She’ll be exploring the history, engineering, science and manufacturing of your favourite bath toy: the humble rubber duck!
Takita Bartlett-Lashley — Crafting calculations: Exploring mathematical artistry in fashion and design. Takita is a mathematician whose work at the intersection of STEM, fashion and education explores the creative applications of maths and technology across fashion and design. Takita will be talking about using crafts to introduce mathematical concepts to children.
Dr Samantha Terry — Can radioactivity cure cancer? Samantha is a radiobiologist whose research seeks to determine how different types of radioactivity can be best used in the clinic. She’ll be talking about the use of radioactivity in the treatment of cancer and how to make radioactive treatments more effective.
Joysy John MBE — Transforming teaching in the age of AI. Joysy is a software engineer, education entrepreneur and edtech advisor who has launched three education non-profits and advised government on edtech policy. Joysy will be talking about the role of technology in education and asking how we can use tech to close the digital skills gap, especially amongst women and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
Dr Sarah Bearchell — The Cloud Factory. Sarah is a science writer, presenter and trainer who won the 2024 Beetlestone Award for Leadership and Legacy in Informal Science Learning. She’ll be creating clouds live on stage in a multi-sensory, hands-on demo, with help with some volunteers from the audience!
Prof Anjali Goswami — The evolutionary truth about cats and dogs. Anjali is a palaeobiologist who specialises in the evolution of animal shape, especially skulls. She has developed new mathematical approaches for reconstructing how and why animals look the way they do, now and in the past. Anjali will be talking about why cats are evolutionarily perfect.
Throw an Ada Lovelace Day watch party!
If you can’t make it to the Royal Institution in person, why not throw a watch party?
Whether you gather your colleagues, community or friends together in person or all watch online, we have some generous discounts for anyone buying livestream tickets in bulk:
11 - 100 tickets: 15% off
101 - 500 tickets: 50% off
501 - 1000 tickets: 70% off
For companies, buying livestreaming tickets to Ada Lovelace Day Live for your employees is a great way to both support ALD and to demonstrate your appreciation for the invaluable contributions your female colleagues make.
And if you’re organising a watch party in an educational setting or for an underserved community, we do have further discounts to ensure participation is affordable.
If you’d like to place a bulk order, please get in touch with me directly.
And if you’d like to know more about how to organise a watch party, take a look at our blog post for advice.
Ada Lovelace Day around the world
Every year, people around the world put on their own events to mark Ada Lovelace Day, and we are already starting to get people adding their events to our list:
New Zealand, Auckland: Ada Lovelace Day Aotearoa NZ 2024. STEM Wana Trust will be livestreaming part of the ALD celebrations in London, and then will host five women in STEM for a panel discussion. 9 Oct, 6:30am - 9:30am, NZ$5.
UK, Bletchley: Digital Future Days: Ada Lovelace Day (13-18 years). The National Museum of Computing is hosting an educational event for school and home-educator groups, bridging the gap between employers and future employees in the dynamic world of technology. 2 Oct, 9:30am - 3:30pm, £5.
Your event here? Let us know what you’re planning to do to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day, wherever you are, however big your event, and whether it’s open to the public or for a private group!
If you want to put on your own event, then now is the time to get cracking! We’ve seen all sorts of events over the years, from talks to cream teas to Wikipedia edit-a-thons, to ALD watch parties. Take a look at our guide for tips and ideas!
Ada Lovelace on Countryfile
This week’s Countryfile, available to people in the UK on iPlayer (begins at 37:23), featured a look at Ada Lovelace’s Devon estate.
Lisa Shipley, Exmoor National Park’s historic environment record officer, and woodland officer Graeme McVittie, are working to preserve and revitalise Culbone Woods which was once owned by Lovelace and her husband.
Lovelace moved to Ashley Combe House, on the north coast of Exmoor, after she married William King and was very involved in the management of the estate. The pair created several mile-long drives and the Park is now “working to restore some elements of their vision”, including restoring their footpaths. Although landslides have damaged the paths, some original features remain, including retaining walls put in place by the Lovelaces.
One path leads down to a beautiful viewpoint out over the Bristol Channel, where you can also find rare whitebeam trees, Sorbus margaretae. It’s possible, but unconfirmed, that the Lovelaces planted these whitebeams, which were often planted as ornamentals because of their pretty flowers.
Around the web
Here is our round up of links and reading that we’ve found this month!
Ada Lovelace featured: Adafruit has unveiled a new mural of Ada at its factory in Brooklyn.
Women of colour: Al Jazeera reports on how women from rural areas are learning STEM skills in India in order to get jobs in IT, but it is also helping them come up with solutions and projects for their villages. SheThePeople interviews Dr Shawna Pandya, a neuroscientist and astronaut, who will be Canada’s first commercial astronaut. Another astronaut, Sunita Williams, who has held records for the longest space flight by a female astronaut, is the subject of this article by Zee News. Professor Jung-Hye Roe writes for Nature on how to support women research scientists in South Korea. The New Indian Express interviews Sudipta Sengupta who was the first Indian woman to visit Antarctica.
Overlooked women: Interns on the Her Story programme at the Smithsonian have written about their experiences exploring women’s history. The NSA has released a lecture with computer scientist Grace Hopper, Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People, originally recorded in 1982. Nature Communications Earth & Environment notes that few obituaries on women in science are published in Nature and aims to address this, starting with ecologist Dr Cheryl Ann Palm. Discover explores the work of Margaret Floy Washburn, a psychologist considered one of the founders of comparative psychology. The Lightest Element, by Stella Feehily, is a new play that examines the work of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, an astronomer who discovered that stars are made of hydrogen and helium; it runs at the Hampstead Theatre until 12 Oct 2024. To mark the launch of the play, The Guardian celebrates several women whose work in astronomy was overlooked: Payne-Gaposchkin, Annie Maunder, Alice Everett, Vera C Rubin, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell.
Books: Anna Von Mertens has written a book about the work of Henrietta Leavitt and the Harvard Computers titled Attention Is Discovery: The Life and Legacy of Astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, reviewed by Scientific American. Michele C Hollow has a new book out for children about palaeontologist Mary Anning, called Jurassic Girl.
Podcasts and videos: Listen to the latest episode of Diverse: a SWE Podcast with Professor Carlotta Berry, founder of NoireSTEMinist and Karen Horting, CEO of SWE on their inclusion to the Forbes 50 Over 50 list. Scientific American has an episode looking at women writing science journalism as part of the Lost Women of Science Conversations podcast. Underrepresentation in STEM is the topic of This Week In Space as the hosts speak with Czarina Salido, a physicist who founded Taking Up Space.
Huge thanks to our sponsors
Ada Lovelace Day simply wouldn’t be possible without our sponsors, so I’d very much like to thank our venue partner, the Royal Institution, as well as our sponsors, Digital Science, Arden University, Ada Infrastructure and Redgate, for their support this year. for their support this year. And yes, you can find our more about them on our website!
All the best,
Suw & the ALD team