Stella Atkins is a Professor Emeritus in

computing science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...

in Canada, and one of the founding members of the

Systers Systers, founded by Anita Borg, is an international electronic mailing list for technical women in computing. The Syster community strives to increase the number of women in computer science and improve work environments for women. The mailing list ...

community for technical women in computing. Her primary research interests are in medical computing (includes laparoscopic surgery, sleep studies and telehealth) and medical image display and analysis.

Education

Atkins grew up in England with an intense interest in math. Her father was an engineer and her mother, a statistician. She enjoyed reading math books for fun but because her sister was studying mathematics in college, she wanted to take a different route and pursued chemistry studies instead. When choosing a university, Atkins chose

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

in England, because chemist

Dorothy Hodgkin Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (née Crowfoot; 12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994) was a Nobel Prize-winning British chemist who advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of biomolecules, which became essential fo ...

, who had just received a

Nobel Prize in Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...

, was there. After Atkins received her B.Sc. in chemistry from Nottingham University (1966), she went on to work at the Shell Refining Company as a chemical engineer. There she performed simulations of oil refineries and oil flow, and developed her interest in computing. Atkins later became a scientific computer programmer advisor at the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...

in England and received a M.Phil. in computer science from there in 1976. In 1985, Atkins received a Ph.D. in computer science from the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

References

External links

Google scholar profile
Living people Canadian women computer scientists Canadian computer scientists Year of birth missing (living people) Alumni of the University of Warwick University of British Columbia Faculty of Science alumni Academic staff of Simon Fraser University Alumni of the University of Nottingham British emigrants to Canada {{Compu-scientist-stub