Presenters at CWC 2008

Corinna Balkow, University of Bremen, Germany 2000–2007: Study of Philosophy and Digital Media at University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany 2003: Erasmus student philosophy and Information Technology at National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
Annette Baumann, Technical University Munich, Germany Annette Baumann studied Communication Science and Computer Science at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. Since 2002 she's been scientific employee at the Technical University of Munich. Her main work field in the five years at the media production department was the Web Portal and Content Management System of the TU Munich as well as teaching activities in the field of the World Wide Web. In 2007 she moved on to the chair of automatic control and is now working in the administration and scientific management of CoTeSys (COgnition for TEchnical SYStems), a newly established research cluster of excellence.
Jenine Beekhuyzen, Griffith University, Australia Jenine Beekhuyzen is a full time PhD student in the School of Information and Communication Technology at Griffith University. Her topic is "Digital Rights Management and the online music experience". The project investigates how security technology like digital rights management (DRM) is changing the way that people access, share and listen to music, now that they also have the option of downloading music over the Internet. Jenine has also been working in the WinIT (Women in IT) Project longitudinal study since 2000 and in 2007 served as a guest professor within the Maria Goeppert-Mayer programme in Germany developing and delivering an undergraduate course in Gender and IT. Being an active researcher, she serves as a reviewer for a number of information systems academic journals and conferences. She also puts this research into practice by working in the community. She has a keen interest in encouraging more girls into information technology and supporting the women that are currently in the industry and does this by being part of the organising group of the annual "Technology Can Take You Anywhere" day (~1500 girls), and also being a mentor and volunteer for the Queensland Women in Technology (WIT) association. She works at employing innovative methods (like mobile technology) to support these activities.
Polly Cantlon, The University of Waikato, New Zealand Polly is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Graphic Design in the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Waikato University.
Sue M. Chard, Whitireia Community Polytechnic, New Zealand Susan M. Chard is a Senior Lecturer at Whitireia Community Polytechnic, Porirua New Zealand. Her research is in the field of web based learning. Currently, her focus is the development of web based 3D learning environments and the methods of evaluating these environments.
Barbara Crump, Massey University Wellington, New Zealand Barbara is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management, Massey University, Wellington, teaching on the Information Systems major. Her overseas experiences include living and working at Khon Kaen University, Thailand in the early 1970s, being a full-time mother for four years in London and, more recently taking up a research scholarship at the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur in 2004. Her major research interests include women in the tertiary learning computing environment and those working in the industry and issues around the digital divide. She has a Doctor of Science Education from Curtin University of Technology, Perth and holds Graduate Diploma Information Systems and Bachelor of Arts from Victoria University, Wellington.
Alejandra González Beltrán, Queen's University Belfast, UK Alejandra González Beltrán received the degree of Licentiate in Computer Science (Honours) from Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina. She is currently working towards a PhD in Computer Science at the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. Her research interests include distributed systems and software engineering. In particular, her current work is in the area of peer-to-peer networks and grid computing.
Lynnette Flowers, Dragonfly Enterprises, Hamilton, New Zealand Lynnette Flowers has a Bachelor of Arts and was a secondary school teacher for over 25 years before venturing into the world of business in 2001. Dragonfly Enterprises Ltd is the trading company for her Business Writing, Networking Training services. Lynnette moved to Hamilton from Napier in 2003 and quickly became very involved in the Waikato business community. Such was the strength of her personal networks that in late 2003 she was coopted to the Waikato Chamber of Commerce Board to re-launching the Business Women's Networks. She has been re-elected to the Chamber of Commerce Board twice for 2 yearly terms, most recently in 2006. She is the chair of the annual Westpac Business Excellence Awards, which showcases the best of Waikato businesses. Lynnette runs regular training workshops for networking ranging from 2 hours to a full day. These take place all around New Zealand. She also speaks to business organisations, clubs and groups about the value of and the techniques involved in networking. Lynnette won Highly Commended Networker of the Year 2004 at the New Zealand HerBusiness Businesswoman of the Year 2004 Awards.
Liisa von Hellens, Griffith University, Australia Associate Professor Liisa von Hellens is the past Head of School of Computing and Information Technology (now School of Information and Communication Technology) in Griffith University. She has over thirty years experience in the IT industry (including working as a programmer and systems developer) as well as university level education experience in Australia and Europe (Finland and UK). Her doctorate at Templeton College, Oxford University, was about packaged software provision and use, and her subsequent research, publications and consulting activities have covered information systems development and use in organisations, strategic quality management of software development, the management of IT human resources and the associated skills supply. Several refereed articles have been published on these topics. In 1995, together with Dr Sue Nielsen she established the WinIT (Women in IT) Project. She was also involved in establishing an IT Mentoring Program for selected high schools in Brisbane, a project funded by Griffith University's Strategic Improvement Grant. In 2007 she served as a guest professor within the Maria Goeppert-Mayer programme in Germany, developing and delivering an undergraduate course in Gender and IT with the WinIT project team.
Annika Hinze, The University of Waikato, New Zealand Annika is a lecturer at the University of Waikato. Her research interests are in event notification and information systems. She is living with her two cats in Hamilton, New Zealand.
Lyn Hunt, The University of Waikato, New Zealand Lyn is a lecturer in statistics at the University of Waikato. She is interested in data mining, mixture models (a statistical approach to grouping data) and missing data methods.
Gloria W. Jacobs, US Computer Science Major, 20+ years design and development experience with many languages and platforms. Devout Linux and Open Source Worshipper. Columnist for The Python Papers, writes for DevChix.com, blogs on AlphaWomen.com.
Catherine Legg, The University of Waikato, New Zealand Catherine Legg lectures in logic and philosophy at the University of Waikato, and and publishes research in ontology both in traditional Philosophy and contemporary Information Science. Dr Legg has a PhD in philosophy from Australian National University. Prior to joining the U of Waikato she worked for two years in software engineering at an AI research company (Cycorp, in Austin Texas: www.cyc.com).
Sue Nielsen, Griffith University, Australia Sue Nielsen has taught and worked in Information Management and Information Systems for thirty years and is currently Adjunct Senior Researcher in the Institute for Integrated and Intelligent Systems in the School of Information and Communication Technology at Griffith University. As well as her involvement with Liisa von Hellens in the WinIT (Women in IT) and mentoring projects, she has carried out research on organisational culture and employee commitment in information systems development and software quality management. Her PhD from Griffith University used ethnographic methods and discourse analysis to study change management in an information technology centre. Her current research is investigating cultural differences in perceptions of time and change in information systems development and use. Sue also was involved in developing an undergraduate course in Gender and IT with the WinIT project team within the Maria Goeppert-Mayer programme in Germany.
Stephanie Nyman, The University of Waikato, New Zealand Stephanie is a lecturer and PhD student at the Geology Department at Waikato University.
Beryl Plimmer, University of Auckland, New Zealand Beryl Plimmer has a PhD in Computer Science (Human Computer Interaction). She is now Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland. Her career has been a zig-zag path taking her from industry in the 1970s to full-time mother, teacher and most recently academia. Her research passion is making computers easier and more natural tools so that the tools adapt to the person, rather than the person adapting to the tool. The current focus of her research is pen and gesture-based interaction. You can find more about this on her web page.
Ida Pu, Computing Department, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK Ida Pu is a computer scientist and lecturer working full-time in Goldsmiths, University of London since 1996. She received her PhD degree in Computer Science from University of Warwick, UK in 1997. Since then, her research interests are centred in the area of algorithmics with applications in data compression and MR imaging. She has published books by international publishers, research papers in the UK and international journals and conferences, and subject guides by the University of London in Data Compression, Data Structures and Algorithms, Advanced Programming in Java. Her teaching of Data Compression in the University of London since 2000 and her book "Fundamental Data Compression" by Elsevier Science and Technology 2006 have both been popular among the students.
Andrea Schweer, The University of Waikato, New Zealand Andrea is one and a half year into her PhD in Computer Science at the University of Waikato. Originally from Germany, she has undergraduate/graduate degrees in Computer Science from the University of Dortmund, Germany. In her PhD project, Andrea is working on the Digital Parrot, a system that helps people remember. Her research touches on context-aware computing, the semantic web, information retrieval, human-computer interaction and cognitive psychology. Andrea has participated in several conferences for women in computing: she was a presenter, attendee and/or member of program committee at informatica feminale 2000-2004, Germany; Computing Women Congress 2005/2008, New Zealand; and Grace Hopper Celebration 2006, US.
vicki smith, Aotearoa/NZ vicki has a background that includes working in science technical roles, graphic and web environments, and with adult education. She currently works with schools on the west coast of the south island, in their provision of professional development, delivery of distance education and in their social, cultural and educative collaboration using a variety of online tools. A visual artist and a founding member of Avatar Body Collision, vicki’s creative energies are presently largely involved with the devising and development of online performances works as well as supporting others use of UpStage.
Diane Strode, Whitireia Community Polytechnic, New Zealand Diane Strode is a Senior Lecturer at Whitireia Community Polytechnic, Porirua, New Zealand. Her research is in system and software development methodologies, and software capstone projects. She has recently completed a study investigating the agile methods and how they are used in industry.
Claire Timpany, The University of Waikato, New Zealand Claire completed her Masters in Computer Graphic Design from Wanganui School of Design in November 2007. She is currently a lecturer in Computer Graphic Design at Waikato University. She has recently returned from eight months on a scholarship researching at Universities in both Nottingham, England and Ljubljana, Slovenia. Claire’s main areas of interest and research are typography, print design and physical interaction design. The way in which people interact with printed material is the area in which her research is currently focussed.