Susan Eisenbach

Head, Department of Computing
Imperial College London

Programming Language Research and Technical Disruption

Maybe its just me getting old, but my impression is that technological changes are ever increasingly changing how we live and work. Advances such as Big Data and the Internet of Things are changing how business works. This talk is about the role that Programming Language research has in the age of technological disruptions. I believe that Programming Languages are central to many technical disruptions and that language innovation comes out of technical disruption. To have the greatest impact language researchers need to look outward for what problems they should solve. I will look at two areas Finance and Cybersecurity and show how PL research could have impact. This talk is based on a talk given by Ben Zorn from Microsoft Research at PLDI 2016.

Short biography

Susan Eisenbach has been at Imperial College London since September 1983, being promoted to a Chair in 2006. She has been Head of the Department of Computing since January 2010. Prior to that she held a college post as Dean of Learning and Teaching. Prior to that she was Director of Studies in the Department of Computing for 15 years, with overall responsibility for Computing’s teaching provision.

Susan has a great interest in how we can produce good software systems and this pervades both her views on what should be taught at undergraduate and postgraduate level and her research. Her current research interests are in how we can produce concurrent programs that behave correctly.

Susan was elected a member-at-large of the ACM Sigplan in 2012 and re-elected in 2015. She is responsible for the John C Reynolds Dissertation Award.

Natasa Milic-Frayling

Professor and Chair in Data Science, Faculty of Science
The Nottingham University

Entrepreneurship: the value of teams and social capital

Entrepreneurship is about creating value from resources that are available but, in most instances, not under our control. The key is to mobilize them and direct them towards new goals. We discuss the importance of building a team that is determined to pursue the vision and skilled in creating new value. Most essentially, the team has to command sufficient social capital to connect the enterprise with organizations and individuals who can benefit from its activities. Without that, sustainability of the enterprise is impossible— it will be short lived.

Short biography

Natasa Milic-Frayling is Professor and Chair of Data Science at the School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham. She is also Chair of the Technology and Research Workgroup of the UNESCO PERSIST Programme and Founder of Intact Digital Ltd that provides digital continuity services through software virtualization. Natasa has a long track record in computer science research and innovation, working on new paradigms in digital content management and analysis, online communication, and social media interactions. Prior to joining the University of Nottingham in October 2015, Natasa was a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK. Natasa collaborates with a number of academic and industry partners. She is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar with MediaX at Stanford University. She has been elected a member of the ACM Europe Council and appointed to the Executive Committee of the ACM Women Europe. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Turing Gateway in Mathematics at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences.