ICG members this week have been celebrating Ada Lovelace Day, an annual celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This year was particularly special as it marks the 200th anniversairy of Lovelace’s birth, with many news and media outlets celebrating the event (e.g. this BBC4 Documentary “Calculating Ada”).
Our ICG Outreach Officer, Dr Jen Gupta, was one of the speakers for Ada Lovelace Live in London. This high profile “science cabaret” event showcases the UK’s “most fabulous women in STEM” (their words). Jen talked about the science of spectroscopy, with a live demo of the spectra of hydrogen, and introduced the room to Margaret Huggins, a British pioneer of astronomical spectroscopy.
Jen Gupta demonstrating spectroscopy at Ada Lovelace Live.
This year Finding Ada have also published a new book of stories of inspiring women in STEM. More Passion for Science: Journey’s into the Unknown is the second anthology published by the organization to mark Ada Lovelace Day. Available as an eBook from Amazon for £1.99 (in support of Ada Lovelace Day events and educational materials), this book contains a Chapter “Mary Somerville and the Mechanism of the Heavens” written by ICG Reader in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Dr. Karen Masters.
Both Jen and Karen also published blog posts to mark the event, which started in 2009 as a simple call for bloggers to write about unknown and inspirational women in STEM.
