One of the first computer scientists to undertake serious research in multimedia and hypermedia, Professor Dame Wendy Hall DBE, FRS, FREng has been at its forefront ever since. The influence of her work has been significant in many areas including digital libraries, the development of the Internet, and the emerging research discipline of Web Science. Currently, her research focuses on bridging social and physical sciences through Web Science and analysing online systems from a sociotechnical perspective. She serves as Director and Trustee of the Web Science Trust.
Honoured as a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2009, Hall was also elected Fellow of the Royal Society that same year. In July 2008, she made history as the first non-North American to be elected President of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Her fellowships include the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the ACM, and she is a distinguished fellow of the British Computer Society.
Hall’s extensive leadership experience includes roles such as Senior Vice President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, member of the UK Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology, and founding member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council. She also served as President of the British Computer Society, EPSRC Senior Research Fellow, and member of the EPSRC Council.
In 2017, Hall co-chaired the UK government’s AI Review and subsequently joined the AI Council. She was appointed the UK’s first AI Skills Champion in 2018 and chaired the Ada Lovelace Institute from 2020 to 2023. She currently co-chairs the ACM Publications Board and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Royal Society Open Science. In 2023, Hall was appointed to the United Nations high-level advisory body on artificial intelligence.
Through her leadership across national and international institutions, Hall has broken numerous barriers, readily deploying her position on numerous national and international bodies to advocate for increased representation of women in science, engineering, and technology, serving as a prominent role model and champion for gender diversity in these fields.
