Monday 8th February marks International Women's Day 2021. The theme this year is Choose to Challenge. A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions - all day, every day. We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world. The School of Electrical Engineering and Electronics will be celebrating online today and hope you join in with us.
Women in our School
On this International Women's Day 2021 we wanted to tell you about some of the brilliant female academics we have in the School of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Computer Science:
Dr Alkimi Sgouritsa - Computer Science
Alkimi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science, and she is part of the Algorithms Section and Economics and Computation Group.
She first obtained her Diploma (MSc & BSc) from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering National Technical University of Athens. Going on to then gain a masters degree in Computer Science (with specialisation in Theoretical Computer Science) from the University of Edinburgh. You can find her MSc thesis on Online Profit-Maximising Sampling Auctions For Digital Goods here.
After this she completed her PhD in 2017, in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool. You can find her PhD thesis on Algorithms for Game-Theoretic Environment here.
In parallel, in 2016, she also worked as a Lecturer at the University of Liverpool for the MSc module “Algorithmic Game Theory”.
During the academic year 2018-2019 she was a PostDoctoral Researcher at the Max-Planck Institute for Informatics before coming back to Liverpool.
Her research interests incluse; Algorithmic Mechanism Design, algorithmic Game Theory, algorithms and combinatorics.
Dr Munira Raja - Electrical Engineering and Electronics
Munira is a lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics. She joined the Department in In 2008, when she was appointed a lectureship, under the Organic Electronics Research group.
Her academic career began when she graduated with a BEng Honours degree in Computer and Microelectronic Systems, at the University of Liverpool in 1999. After that she went on to do a PhD in Organic Electronics, where she researched the effects of utilising novel conjugated polymers in Electronic devices such as thin-film transistors. This research was funded by EPSRC, under the Carbon-Based Electronics (CBE) project.
From 2004, she worked as research associate on a European project ‘PolyApply’, funded under the Fp6 EU programme. The project had interests in generating smart organic devices that integrate a range of electronic capabilities. For a demonstrator, the consortium presented a functional Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag with organic devices.
Some of Munira's current research interests include development of low-cost flexible organic circuits, for use as key functional blocks in various mixed signal applications such as smart sensor (SIMS EU project), display (Case Award with Merck Chemicals Ltd) and RFID tag (PolyApply project).
Munira is also the Chair of the School of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Computer Science's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
Dr Floriana Grasso - Computer Science
Floriana is a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science, joining the Department in 1998.
Her PhD thesis is titled “Characterising Rhetorical Argumentation”, and was awarded by the Department of Computing and Electrical Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.
Today within the Department she is a member of the ARK (Argumentation and Representation of Knowledge) research group and the TASC group.
She is the Academic Lead for International Opportunities and is the Deputy Director for Computer Science online studies.
She is coordinator of the module "Designing Systems for the Digital Society" in the undergraduate programmes, and she supervises a number of PhD students on topics ranging from emotion analysis to ontologies, e-learning, e-health, and persuasive technology.
Floriana is interested in persuasiveness, and what it takes to achieve effective (and affective) communication. One of the major application areas for this research is health informatics, where she looks at how to provide personalised and persuasive information or advice on healthier lifestyles.
She is also one of the founding editors of Argument and Computation and of the CMNA workshops.
Dr Ivona Z.Mitrovic - Electrical Engineering and Electronics
Ivona is a Reader within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics.
She holds a BSc EE degree in Microelectronics from the University of Nis, an MSc degree in Materials Science from the University of Belgrade and a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering and Electronics from the University of Liverpool.
Throughout her academic career she has also been the principal and co-investigator on a number of projects, mainly funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), with a contribution of £1.5 million, and has authored over 100 journal and conference proceedings papers. Furthermore she has given over twenty talks at international conferences in Europe and the USA, including IEEE SISC, ECS, AVS, EMRS and INFOS conferences.
She has strongly promoted the Engineering profession through her research and through devising and teaching a number of Engineering modules. In terms of teaching her focus has been to inspire and transform Engineering students into future academic and industry leaders through research-led teaching.
Her research focus is on setting agenda for new exploration in the area of emerging technologies, nano- and bio-electronics.
She is also the School and Departmental Director for Postgraduate Research.
We also wanted to support the 'Choose to Challenge' theme by raising our hands in solidarity.
Find out more
For more IWD2021 events across the University visit here.
For more on the EDI in the School of EEECS visit here.
To find out about LivWise (Liverpool Women in Science and Engineering) visit here.
