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May 2012 Honorary Degree Recipient

Doctor of Laws (honoris causa)

Professor Dame Wendy Hall is an expert in creating links 鈥� whether through her groundbreaking research in computer science, her leadership with societies and associations, or her keen support and encouragement of girls and women to consider careers in science and technology.

We are honoured to have Dr. Hall with us today.

Visionaries have the gift of seeing the possible. Dr. Hall is just such a person. Her contributions began back in the late 鈥�80s, when she was a junior faculty member at the University of Southampton. There, Dr. Hall was one of the first researchers to realize the potential of hyperlinked electronic files for the storage and retrieval of information from large collections of documents. This early research predated the advent of the World Wide Web, and Dr. Hall is now considered, along with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, as one of the pioneers in the field.

And she has never stopped moving forward. She continues to open our eyes to the possibilities in the areas of the Semantic Web and Web Science. Web Science is a discipline 鈥� which Dr. Hall, with others, named 鈥� that studies the many facets of the web and our interaction with it. Dr. Hall is a co-founder of the Web Science Research Initiative, which is today the Web Science Trust. She is also an editor-in-chief of the journal, Foundations and Trends in Web Science.听

In a letter supporting Dr. Hall鈥檚 nomination for an honorary degree, 鲍鱼tv鈥檚 Dean of Computer Science, Dr. Michael Shepherd, said: 鈥淲eb science is highly multidisciplinary, and although it is still being defined, includes mathematics, physics, computer science, psychology, ecology, sociology, law, political science, economics and much more. At the forefront of this new science is Wendy Hall.鈥�

Today, Dr. Hall is dean of the Faculty of Physical and Applied Sciences at the University of Southampton. Her connection to the university goes back to her student days when she completed undergraduate and doctoral degrees there in mathematics. She later returned to the university, serving as a lecturer, professor of computer science and then head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science.

Dr. Hall has authored and co-authored hundreds of papers and generously shares her expertise and leadership. She has served as president of the Association for Computing Machinery, president of the British Computer Society and senior vice-president of the Royal Academy of Engineering. As well, she has sat on the Prime Minister鈥檚 Council for Science and Technology and, in 2010, was made chair of the Information and Communication Technologies Advisory Group of the European Commission.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Hall has been honored repeatedly for her work. She is a Dame Commander of the British Empire and a Fellow of the Royal Society. She is also a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Association for Computing Machinery, among others. An honorary fellow of Cardiff University, she has received honorary degrees from Oxford Brookes University, the University of Glamorgan, the University of Pretoria and the Loughborough University.

She received a Women of Outstanding Achievement Award for Scientific Discovery and Science, Engineering and Technology Innovation from the UK Research Centre, and the Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award from the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology.

Dr. Hall has also been a great inspiration to women, dedicated to encouraging them in the fields of science and technology. 鲍鱼tv computer science professor Dr. Carolyn Watters, who is also our Vice President Academic, says Dr. Hall鈥檚 commitment to women has been a constant in her advocacy. And, Dr. Watters, adds: 鈥淚 believe I speak from experience on this topic, [it is] not an advocacy that leads to easy success or that can be seen as a short-term commitment.鈥�

For her example and inspiration to others in her field, her leadership and her ability to envisage the possible, I ask you, Mr. Chancellor, in the name of the Senate, to bestow upon Professor Dame Wendy Hall the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.