Nominated by: Wendy McDonald

I’d like to nominate Professor Dame Wendy Hall – I only recently came across her and her work through listening to ‘The Life Scientific’. It was fantastic to hear her talk about her route to becoming such a prominent computer scientist having originally thought that computers had nothing much to offer her. Not only is she a hugely intelligent and successful scientist but she also sounds like an inspirational manager – leading the School of Electronics and Computer Science from 2002 to 2007, during which time the department lost much of its work and infrastructure in a severe fire.

I also had to nominate her as she shares my name and it’s not often that you come across another Wendy, especially in the STEM world.