Tag: computing > Queen's School of Computing

QSC Celebrates Women in Technology

We’re thrilled to share with you the highlights from the recent Aspirations in Computing event in Toronto, where we celebrated the achievements of remarkable women in technology. Hosted by the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), the event showcased the transformative power of encouragement, mentorship, and community in shaping the future of women in technology.

At the heart of this event were two dedicated organizers, Wendy Powley and Drorit Weiss, whose passion and commitment have propelled the mission of NCWIT forward. Prof. Wendy Powley is an Associate Professor at Queen’s School of Computing, Queen’s University with over three decades of experience. Wendy has mentored and inspired countless women in computing, both nationally and internationally. Her tireless efforts to celebrate and connect Canadian women in computing have left an indelible mark on the community.

The event was further enriched by the presence of five exceptional women—Nailah Ogeer, Julia McPolin, Julia Di Monte, Sinthu Sivanesan, and Shannon Klett. All former students of Prof. Wendy Powley, these inspiring individuals volunteered their time to engage with promising young women in computer science, sharing their insights and experience.

**Nailah Ogeer, Julia McPolin, Julia Di Monte, Sinthu Sivanesan, and Shannon Klett, former students of Prof. Wendy Powley**

Dr. Erin Meger to Speak at WiSE Dinner With Industry

Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) is a student community on campus where students interested in tech collaborate and network together. The annual Dinner with Industry (DWI) and Brunch With Industry (BWI) events have been a big success for WiSE in the past, both for the number of attending high-ranking speakers, and the engagement and positive energy from the attendees.

The next DWI will take place on Tuesday, February 13th from 4:00-8:00 PM at The Isabel Bader Center. The theme is STRONGER TOGETHER, emphasizing the empowering experience of connecting with others, forming communities with people who share your passions, and finding unity among women in STEM.

Dr. Erin Meger will be one of four speakers attending the event to share her experiences supporting and collaborating with other women in technology, including her non-profit project Women in Combinatorics (WinCom).

In 2019 Dr. Meger co-founded WinCom, a platform for any Combinatorialist who identifies as a woman or non-binary person and would like to connect with other women. The platform is meant to provide community and support to underrepresented researchers worldwide.

Emily Scremin and Sara Di Luch are the current Directors of Events of the Queen’s Chapter of WiSE. We reached out to Emily, Sara, and their team to learn more about the upcoming events and the community they have created on campus.

Here is what they had to say:

Brunch With Industry and Dinner With Industry are the two big annual events that WiSE is known for on campus. What is the difference between the two?

Both BWI and DWI focus on making connections and promoting female empowerment in male dominated fields. Brunch with Industry takes place in the fall semester and serves, as the name implies, a delicious brunch. Dinner with Industry takes place in the spring semester and offers a dinner service. Each event offers a completely new panel of speakers, and is brought to life by 2 separate teams of amazing coordinators which keeps BWI and DWI unique! You can attend both events and have a brand new experience each time.

What makes these events successful?

BWI and DWI are currently the only conferences on campus promoting female involvement in sciences and engineering majors. They provides ample opportunities for students to network with strong female speakers from various career fields.

Networking events for health science and life science students in particular are far and few between on campus. With dinner tables set with other students in similar majors, this event also facilitates meeting and bonding with like minded peers following similar career paths.

BWI and DWI had some incredible women in academia and tech in attendance. What are some common bits of advice for young women that the invited speakers share?

Never let anyone tell you what you are and are not capable of!!!
Everybody is on their own uniquely individual path and timeline.
Focus your energy on your goals and the people that support/cheer you on along the way.
Finding mentors along your career journey will help immensely!

The theme for DWI 2024 is ‘Stronger Together’. Why is community important for women in science and tech programs?

From our experience at WiSE, community absolutely plays a vital role in helping women in STEM reach their full potential. When we feel supported and part of something bigger, it empowers us to stretch further and achieve more than we ever could alone. At the core of what we do is bringing women in science and tech fields together to share, learn and lift each other up. Through networking events, panels, mentoring programs and more, our conference fosters a sense of belonging that directly translates to real opportunities and growth.

Students see role models who’ve faced similar barriers and thrived. They are able to find mentors to advocate for them, and make impactful connections which help them pursue future jobs. That community accountability and inspiration propels us all forward in our work and helps form a strong female presence in these industries.

The theme of being ‘Stronger Together’ for DWI 2024 couldn’t ring more true from my experience at WiSE. By building relationships through our club, we all develop a sense of confidence knowing we have our peers in our corner ready to provide support and advice as we navigate through University and build our careers. Fostering community has been key to our mission since day one, and I truly believe it makes all the difference for the next generation of women leaders in STEM.

What are some other ways to get involved with WiSE?

Listen to our podcast “How to be WiSE” on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and RSS
Join our 2024/25 exec team! Starting in March we will be hiring for all director and coordinator positions!
- Applications open → Monday, March 11th
- Applications close → Saturday, March 23rd
- Interviews → Sunday, March 24th – Sunday, March 31st
- Hiring decisions made → April 4th
Join our mentorship program! More information is available on our website www.queenswise.ca
Keep up to date with our Instagram, @queenswise to learn about volunteer opportunities for our outreach programs!!!

Queen’s Centre for Security and Privacy

Queen’s School of Computing is proud to congratulate the newly opened Queen’s Centre for Security and Privacy on a major research funding success.

A QCSP research team, led by PI and Centre Director Dr. Mohammad Zulkernine and co-applicant and Centre member Dr. Jianbing Ni, has been awarded funding from the National Cybersecurity Consortium for the project Mitigating Security, Privacy, and Ethical Impacts of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems.

Dr. Jianbing Ni has also received the Early Career Researcher Award this January, awarded by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Scalable Computing (TCSC)

The QCSP is a newly is new university‐wide, multidisciplinary research centre. It is led by a group of 12 researchers from five departments of Queen’s University and the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) that conduct pioneering research and train professionals in cybersecurity-related fields.

BMIF Student Receives Sponsorship to Attend the Crohn’s & Colitis Congress

Peyton Briand Presenting Conference Poster

With the support of our generous donors, QSC was able to sponsor our Master’s in Biomedical Informatics student Peyton Briand to attend the Crohn’s & Colitis Congress. The conference took place at the Bellagio in Las Vegas on January 25–27.

We asked Peyton about her experience presenting a poster at this prestigious event.

What drew you to study Biomedical Informatics?

I have a background in life sciences but wanted to shift gears following my undergrad and find a passion for research. When I discovered the BMIF program at Queen’s, I knew it was one that would help me find my place in research. I had a steep learning curve for the computing aspect of this degree, but the work I am doing with current clinical data is very exciting! I am working with Dr. Daniel Mulder at the Kingston Health Sciences Centre in the Gastrointestinal Disease Research Unit looking for undiscovered patterns in white blood cells of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Could you tell us a few words about your poster presentation in Las Vegas?

The title of my poster is “Routinely collected bloodwork reveals immune cell patterns that reflect disease activity in patients with inflammatory bowel disease”.

My project is using data from a local cohort of KHSC patients with IBD. The project is investigating white blood cell counts following routine blood collection. There is a subset called “the differential” that is commonly reported, yet its use is not well defined. By using machine learning techniques, we hope to build a better understanding of the connection between this subset and disease activity, and provide insight to a patient’s clinical presentation without requiring more invasive testing, like the endoscopy.

How did you find out about the Crohn’s & Colitis Congress and what made you decide to attend?

My supervisor, Dr. Mulder, encouraged me to submit an abstract to this conference and share our lab’s work and use of bioinformatics.

I received $700 from QSC to attend this event which covered majority of my travel expenses. While I was very excited to attend a conference and gain such invaluable experience and insight from others studying IBD, finances are always something I need to consider as a student. The sponsorship I received from the QSC relieved much anxiety regarding the expenses of this opportunity and made the decision to attend much easier to make!

How was your experience? Do you feel inspired to continue work in this field?

I had a great time at the Crohn’s and Colitis Congress! The congress did an excellent job hosting, and I was able to learn so much from experts in the field and make connections with research groups across North America. As a poster presenter, I was able to gain feedback from others with and without experience in computing to help me develop future directions for this project. I hope to continue developing models to learn more about our patients and improve the clinical experiences they have by using bioinformatic tools!

Apaylo CCO Thanks QSC Student for Writing a Script That Improved The Company’s Operations

Robert Leaker is the Chief Compliance Officer of Apaylo Finance Technology Inc, a Canadian electronic payment service provider. Earlier this summer Robert reached out to Queen’s School of Computing to share what he referred to as an “amazing experience” working with a QSC student.

Adam Clarke was in his second year studying computer science when he got hired by Apaylo Finance Technology Inc for a short contract. At the time Adam was hired, Apaylo was using the Zoho mailing platform to send out ledgers of accounts to over 100 merchants daily. Due to the volume of merchants, the task of sending a separate ledger to each individual recipient was taking the team about two, two-and-a-half hours of extra work. Robert Leaker was looking to automate this task and asked Adam if he could help.

Adam took on that task and was able to come up with the required script. In order to do that he had to learn the Zoho programming language called Deluge. Robert Leaker said, “I was pretty impressed when Adam, who had never been exposed to this programming language, figured it out and came up with a script, and then did a YouTube video to show me and my team how to use it. We were able to operationalize Adam’s script and it now saves one person’s entire afternoon of work. Our company does 4 billion a year in transactions, but we only have about 12 staff. So the fact that we can free up somebody’s afternoon goes a long way in helping us focus on value added work and on business development.”

This is not Adam’s first experience with billing systems. Over the summer of 2022, Adam participated in the Build2Scale program ran by the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre. Build2Scale is a part-time accelerator program for entrepreneurs looking to innovate in the health sector. As part of the program, Adam co-founded and developed Verus Billing, an automated medical billing system that takes physician input and instantly generates billing codes. The company’s aim is to help physicians spend less time on billing, see more patients and earn more money.

Robert concluded our call by saying he would be happy to recommend Adam to any future employer.

“Adam is a very genuine human being,” he said. “I hope that that is representative of the kind of students that you’re turning out. He understood the problem and took it upon himself to find the solution for it. And that’s exactly what we needed.”

Welcoming the 2023 BMIF Cohort

At the end of August, we got together with the 2023 Biomedical Informatics graduate cohort to celebrate their progress! Some students have completed their Graduate Diploma in Biomedical Informatics and are ready to venture out, while others will continue their studies at QSC for another eight months and graduate with a Professional Master’s degree.

BMIF is a unique interdisciplinary graduate program offered by the School of Computing and Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, which provides the foundation to careers in health care and biomedical research. The program welcomes students from backgrounds in biology, life sciences, biochemistry, medical sciences and related disciplines.

The Graduate Diploma In Biomedical Informatics (GDBI) consists of four courses and runs May-August. The Master’s In Biomedical Informatics (MBI) consists of six courses and a research project and runs from May-April. While on campus, our students receive hands-on training in database design and management, artificial intelligence, statistical analysis, data mining, and image analysis.

The demand for biomedical informatics specialists far exceeds supply. We are witnessing the largest transformation of healthcare ever – bioinformatics specialists will be the rock stars of tomorrow.
Don Aldrige, Ex Executive Director of the CAC

The School will be hosting 3 BMIF webinars in the upcoming months:

Webinar 1: Tuesday, October 24 from 12-1 pm

Webinar 2: Wednesday, November 29, 5.30-6.30 pm

Webinar 3: Thursday, January 11, 12-1 pm

Everyone interested in meeting our team and learning more about the program is welcome to register here: https://www.cs.queensu.ca/graduate/bmif/

QSC Sponsored a New Programming Competition at Bayridge Secondary School

The School of Computing sponsored a programming competition at Bayridge Secondary School on May 9th. The first annual Bayridge Coding Invitational for High School students hosted 25 teams from five different schools, nearly 100 students in total. Holy Cross Catholic Secondary School won the gold, Bayridge students took silver and bronze.

QSC would like to extend special thanks to Professor Wendy Powley for supporting and attending the competition, as well as three of our students who helped out on the day: Michael Cox, Aydan Macgregor and Noon Kho.

The coding competition was organized by Bayridge Computer Science teacher Jon Swaine. Jon Swaine’s dedication to student life was recently celebrated with the ’23 Fred L. Bartlett Memorial Award from the OPSBA, given to one teacher every year to recognize their outstanding contribution to education throughout Ontario.

2023-24 SGSPA Award in Leadership, Innovation, And Community Engagement Awarded to Victoria Armstrong

The annual award recognizes graduate student achievement in leadership, innovation, and community engagement. The award winners are selected to show demonstrable impact across a variety of areas, such as: creating and disseminating knowledge that supports societal improvements, promoting public interests as a social impact leader, entrepreneurial achievements, and civic engagement.

We sincerely congratulate Victoria on this recognition of her contributions to the School of Computing and student life at Queen’s as a whole!

Many will recognize Victoria from her involvement in the Graduate Computing Society, where Victoria has played an active role since the first year of her Master’s program in 2020. After first working for GCS as School Life Officer, then as Vice-President of Operations, in the Fall of 2022 Victoria was elected as the Graduate Computing Society President for the 2022 – 2023 academic year.

In addition to her work as GCS president, Victoria is a mentor through A&S mentorship program, a long standing member of orientation committee, and a highly ranked TA.

Recently, Victoria and a group of other STEM students have piloted a program leading TA/TF I-EDIAA training sessions to further the I-EDIAA practices available in their respective departments. Thus far, 50 students have participated in these workshops, with more scheduled in the upcoming months.

Victoria’s contributions to the academic, social, and cultural life at the School of Computing have received wide recognition this year. In addition to the SGSPA Award, Victoria was recently celebrated at the QSC Award Ceremony with the Ian A. Macleod Award and the Distinguished Service Award. Congratulations, Victoria!

Mohammad Zulkernine Receives 2022 Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision

QSC is delighted to announce that Dr. Mohammad Zulkernine was presented with the 2022 Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision at the Spring Convocation ceremony this June. The award reflects Dr. Zulkernine’s proven ability to inspire students academically and in their careers and guide the overall culture of excellence at QSC and at Queen’s. Dr. Zulkernine is the current Graduate Chair at QSC and has a long-standing reputation for being a supportive and encouraging mentor to his graduate students, which the School previously recognized in 2016 with the internal QSC Distinguished Graduate Supervision award.

The Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision is awarded to supervisors who demonstrate outstanding excellence in advising, monitoring, and mentoring graduate students. The School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs annually recognizes two leading graduate supervisors at the University. The 2023 recipients are Dr. Zulkernine and Jeffrey Brison, Co-Director of the Cultural Studies Program and Professor of History.

Dr. Zulkernine joined the School in 2013 and has mentored 13 postdoctoral fellows, 22 doctoral and 44 master’s students since then. Dr. Zulkernine was the Canada Research Chair in Software Dependability from 2011 to 2021. He leads the Queen’s Reliable Software Technology (QRST) research group and is currently focused on building secure software for cyber-physical systems such as connected and autonomous vehicles and other IoT applications. His supervised students have won conference best paper awards, the Governor General Gold Medal, PhD Research Achievement, and Distinguished Master’s Thesis awards.

Click here to read the original award announcement in the Queen’s Gazette.

2023 NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Awards

In a special ceremony on May 7th, the Ontario National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Aspirations in Computing Awards were presented at the Smith School of Business satellite campus in downtown Toronto. 36 female identifying secondary school students were celebrated for their inspiring accomplishments and contributions to the tech field. The organization partnered with Queen’s School of Computing Professor Wendy Powley in administering the awards. Congratulations to all the winners!

2023 Ontario Award for Aspirations in Computing Winners

The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing (AiC) honours and recognizes grade 9 through 12 students who self-identify as women, genderqueer, or non-binary for their computing-related achievements and interests, and encourages them to pursue their passions. Award recipients are selected based on their aptitude and aspirations in technology and computing, as demonstrated by their computing experience, computing-related activities, leadership experience, tenacity in the face of barriers to access, and plans for post-secondary education.
– National Center for Women & Information Technology