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UNLOC director among top 10 women in communications we should all know

17 December, 2015

Polina Bayvel was selected among "10 women in networking/communications that we should know" for her research contributions in the field of optical networks.

Prof. Polina Bayvel, UNLOC director and head of the Optical Networks Group at UCL’s Electronic & Electrical Engineering Department keenly follows and actively participates in the global ongoing movement for gender equality in science. In February, she celebrated the announcement that UCL Department of Physics & Astronomy was recognised as a leader in gender equality and grabbed the opportunity to remind colleagues and friends that more should be done in her own department where she is one of only two female academic staff memmbers. Acutely aware of the challenges and struggles that women in her own field face, she was deeply honoured to find her name next to those of other nine distinguished female researchers in a special list of “10 women in networking/communications you should know” compiled by ACM SIGMOBILE N2Women program.

N2Women had wanted to do something to highlight many of the amazing women in the networking/communications field, as these women provide role models and inspiration to the more junior members of our community. We then learned of a “top 25" list done by the robotics community, and decided to run with that idea for our community. - said Tracy Camp, one of the co-chairs of the N2Women program. Dr. Camp, and her colleagues solicited nominations from researchers in the field and received 150 responses each with 1-7 nominations for a total of over 140 unique names. Rigorous criteria was then used to narrow down the nominations to a list of 10 truly outstanding female researchers who have made significant contributions to the field of communications and networking. The final list features UNLOC director, Prof. Polina Bayvel along with eminent researchers from Stanford, Princeton, MIT and more. Commenting on Prof. Bayvel’s selection, Noa Zilberman from University of Cambridge, a co-chair of the N2Women Awards committee said: Prof. Polina Bayvel was nominated by a number of her peers and selected for her contribution in the field of Optical Networks. She has been an active researcher in this field for over 20 years, as well as a great role model for young researchers. Prof. Bayvel is a world renowned scientist and her accomplishments are impressive!

N2Women is a growing community of female researchers from the field of communications and networking who are part of the SIGMOBILE international organisation run under the umbrella of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) - the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society. Supported by the IEEE Communications Society, IEEE Computer Society (CS) Technical Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC), Microsoft Research, HP Labs, and Google Research, N2Women’s main goal is to connect female researchers and promote gender equality through a series of workshops, networking events and fellowships for young women in the field. After receiving the news that she was selected for the N2Women prestigious list, Prof. Bayvel said: I am always keen to promote the contribution of outstanding women in communications & networks, often overlooked in this deeply male-dominated field! I am still deeply shocked to find my name on this list, and there are many more other tremendous colleagues who should also be here! I’d like to thank the chairs of N2Women for organising and running this! They are themselves outstanding women whom we should all know!

MORE INFORMATION

N2Women website
Polina Bayvel’s homepage
ACM SIGMOBILE website
ACM website