Congratulations to Natalie Linklater, Winner of CEMF Scholarship!

Our very own CU-WISE Outreach Officer Natalie Linklater has been awarded the national $15,000 Claudette MacKay-Lassonde scholarship from the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation!

From the press release:

She has been selected from candidates across the country for the esteemed $15,000 scholarship which is awarded annually to the most promising women in a graduate engineering program at the PhD level in Canada. Natalie personifies the definitive qualities of the Claudette MacKay-Lassonde scholarship by not only achieving great personal success, but also through her many contributions to her community and the engineering profession.

“Through Natalie’s many successes in the engineering world and her community we can see she truly embodies the qualities that make her the ideal candidate for the Claudette MacKay-Lassonde scholarship. On behalf of CEMF we are thrilled to support her as an ambassador and as a leader to help break down barriers and educate women in Canada who are currently pursuing or considering a degree in engineering,” says CEMF president Huntley O’Connor, P.Eng

Congrats Natalie on this well-deserved award!

Kudos to past WISE exec and officer for defending their PhD theses!

I just wanted to recognize the awesomeness of one of the original four founding members of CU-WISE and past Executive Natalia Villanueva-Rosales, and past CU-WISE Officer Terri Oda, both of whom successfully passed their PhD thesis defences in the last few weeks.  Both of their committees were rather impressed with them.  Congrats ladies!!

I don't think we celebrate our own accomplishments enough, so I'm always trying to encourage others to do so here on the blog.  If you're a member of the CU-WISE community and have something to share about yourself or another awesome woman in science or engineering here at Carleton, you can always contact CU-WISE (wise@carleton.ca) and have us post it!

Carleton Students Win a Prize For Innovative and Challenging Mobile Game

I recently competed on a team with three other students from the School of Computer Science (Jamie Madill, Andrew Erdeg, and Jacob Agar) in the Great Canadian Appathon.  It was a 48-hour mobile game development competition.  Our team didn't place in the top three, but we did get a prize for the most technically challenging game! (I will admit that wasn't thanks to me - Jamie happened to be working on fluid simulation for his thesis and implemented it for the game.)

From the Carleton newsroom article:

The goal of the single player puzzle game is to fill coloured drains with matching fluids that takes full advantage of the interfaces offered by modern mobile devices. The player can dig trenches in the sand to channel the fluid by drawing shapes on the touch screen in the same way they would trace out shapes in the sand. In order to move the fluid, the player simply tilts the phone, causing it to spill down the channels. The challenge lies in not wasting fluid by channelling it down mismatched drains.

The most unfortunate part of the competition? There were hardly any female programmers! (I guess that's why the National Post featured me in one of their articles covering the event.) This was a great experience, so why not give it a shot at your next opportunity?

Chemistry Professor Maria DeRosa Honoured for Research

From the Carleton University newsroom:

For the millions of people worldwide who suffer from psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia, Carleton Professor Maria DeRosa’s next research initiative provides hope for a new treatment. DeRosa is one of 10 Carleton professors who will be honoured with a Research Achievement Award from the university for her innovative research that helps find solutions to real-world problems. The other winners will be announced throughout Carleton’s Research Days celebration that runs until Feb. 11.

Read the rest here and join us in celebrating the amazing accomplishments of all Carleton women in science and engineering!

Water Watch

CU-WISE Outreach Officer Natalie Linklater and faculty advisor Banu Örmeci were recently featured in Carleton University's Research Works:

Banu Örmeci is the Canada Research Chair in Wastewater and Public Health Engineering. Together with grad student Natalie Linklater, she’s developing an innovative new monitoring system for water supplies that uses real-time methods to assess change in quality, and achieve rapid screening of water for toxic substances and pathogens.

 Way to go ladies! Keep up the great work.

Linux Symposium discounts available

We've talked a bit about unfortunate incidents of inappropriate behaviour at conferences. But today, I want to point out a tech conference that's trying to help! The Linux Symposium, recognizing that there have been fewer registrations from women in recent years, is offering discounts to female attendees.

I'm reposting my post to the linuxchix announcement list below, in case any of you are interested in coming out. The student registration fees aren't too onerous, but if you ask nicely you might be able to get an additional discount as a WISE member too.

The Linux Symposium would like to offer special deals members of Linuxchix and UbuntuWomen, particularly because many female attendees have lost funding in recent years.

If you're interested in attending but cost has been a factor, please contact info(at)linuxsymposium.org before registering to get the discount.

http://www.linuxsymposium.org/

The Linux Symposium (formerly the Ottawa Linux Symposium, but being held in Montreal this year) is a conference that I often find interesting and useful in surprising ways. For me, the real benefit has been in meeting other linux folk in person, so even if the technical talks seem to be outside of your interests or over your head, it may still be worth coming to meet the people!

I'm going to be doing a very linuxchix-inspired BOF about attracting women to open source, and we usually try to do a linuxchix dessert night too. I'd love to see more women out! And please don't feel shy about saying hi or joining me and whoever I'm with for lunch/dinner/whatever if you come and would like some people to hang out with!