IEEE Women in Engineering Affinity Group - Panel for 2024 IEEE MetroXRAINE

The panel aims to explore the dual facets of AI's impact on gender equality, focusing on its potential to bridge and inadvertently widen the gender gap.

The first topic delves into how AI technologies can be harnessed to promote gender equality, from enhancing access to education and career opportunities to improving healthcare outcomes for women and LGBTQIA+ people. By leveraging data-driven insights, AI can help dismantle barriers and create more inclusive environments. The second topic addresses the critical issue of gender bias in AI algorithms. The panel will examine how biases in training data and algorithm design can perpetuate stereotypes and inequalities, and discuss strategies to mitigate these biases.

Join us for an engaging discussion with experts from diverse fields as we navigate the challenges and opportunities AI presents in the quest for gender equality.

Valentina Bello

University of Pavia, Italy

• valentina.bello@unipv.it

Nagham Saeed

University of West London, UK

• nagham.saeed@uwl.ac.uk

Susan Murray

University of Hertfordshire, UK

Valentina Bello was born in Tortona (Italy) in 1994. She received the B.Sc. degree in Bioengineering and the M.Sc. degree (summa cum laude) in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pavia (Pavia, Italy), in 2016 and 2018, respectively. In 2022, she received the Ph.D. degree in Electronic, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from the University of Pavia, discussing a dissertation on innovative micro-opto-fluidic sensing platforms for biochemical and medical applications. In 2018, she was visiting thesis student at KU Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) within the Erasmus+ Traineeship program. In 2019, she was visiting researcher at Boston University Photonics Center (Boston, MA, USA). She is currently Assistant Professor in the field of Electrical and Electronic Measurements at University of Pavia.

Dr Nagham Saeed received the BSc (Hons) degree in Computer & Control and the MSc in Mechatronics (Distinction) from the University of Technology, Baghdad, Iraq in 1992 and 1999, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from Wireless Networks and Communications Centre (WNCC), Brunel University, London, UK in 2011. Her Ph.D. research was optimizing Mobile Ad Hoc wireless communication networks introducing an Intelligent Mobile Ad Hoc Network System (I-MANET) based on AI. Her research interests include expert systems for smart cities, wherein she applies AI and ML algorithms to drive modeling and optimization. She is currently an Associate Professor in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and the Head of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Research Group at the University of West London. She is recognized as CEng by the Engineering Council, a senior member of the IEEE, a member of the IET, 2024-2025 IEEE UK & Ireland Section Vice Chair, 2026-2027 IEEE UK & Ireland Section Elect-Chair, IEEE Women in Engineering UK & Ireland section Past Chair (2023).

Susan Murray. Currently Head of Engineering at the University of Hertfordshire since 2021 and been a member of the University since 2004. I have a hands-on approach to leadership and am actively involved providing feedback and support to overcome barriers such as investment in capital expenditure to augment teaching equipment and improve student experience. My previous experience as a Senior Operations Manager for blue chip companies such as Motorola and Amazon support my activities. The department has grown across the traditional Engineering subject areas with eight Subject Group Leaders leading 140 staff.
Key achievements include expanding the subjects within the UG and PG engineering courses to ensure compatibility for our students in today’s engineering employment market including AI, programming and appropriate software tools. I provided budget to advocate Engineering students in the RedR UK initiative ‘Student Humanitarian Scheme’ and ‘Engineers Without Borders’ the latter now embedded into the engineering curriculum. Other initiatives include ‘Girls In Engineering’ activities for pre-A level school pupils. In addition, in 2023 I secured Royal Academy of Engineering funding of £62k supporting an initiative for pre-A level black school pupils to ‘Discover Engineering’ in a residential full university experience. I am a STEM ambassador for Hertfordshire and support the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) at UH.

Letizia Tanca

Letizia Tanca is Full Professor of Computer Engineering (area Data Management) at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (DEIB) of Politecnico di Milano, where she has held various positions, among which Head of the Bachelor-and-Master Degree Committee and Head of the Computer Science area of DEIB. She teaches Databases and, Technologies for Information Systems. She has been involved, as PI or co-PI in several research projects. Letizia is author of about 200 publications on databases, data semantics, data integration, context-aware data management, and ethical data analysis and Machine Learning (see https://dblp.org/pid/t/t/tiziaTanca.html and in particular https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3362121). Her research papers were cited over 7400 times and her h-index is 37 (Google Scholar). In the last years, she was Associate Editor of several conferences and journals (e.g. PVLDB 2014, 2023 and 2025) and recently Program Co-Chair of the EDBT Conference. She has organized and chaired the PIE workshops (Processing Information Ethically) 2019, 2020 and 2021 on ethical treatment of information http:///pie.dia.uniroma3.it/

Julie Wall

Julie Wall is a Professor of AI and Advanced Computing at the University of West London. She is a member of the British Standards Institution (BSI) and serves as an expert in the field of AI. Her research focuses on designing intelligent systems to process and model temporal data, with a particular emphasis on speech and language applications.

Luigi Lavorgna

Luigi Lavorgna, born January 24, 1970 in Naples, Italy, is a neurologist currently working at the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli". He obtained a PhD in Neuroscience and is qualified as an Associate Professor in Health Professions Sciences and Applied Medical Technologies. He also chairs the Study Group on "Digital Neurology and Artificial Intelligence" of the Italian Society of Neurology. Dr. Lavorgna's scientific productivity is as follows: 139 published articles, an H index of 31 and 2890 citations. His previous roles include Vice President of Campania Digitale, Project Coordinator for technological innovation at the Campania Region and multiple academic positions including Adjunct Professor at various universities. In the field of research he has contributed to projects on non-conventional magnetic resonance imaging techniques and multiple sclerosis. He currently directs several digital health projects and is a member of several scientific committees, including the Italian Consensus on Telerehabilitation and the European Reference Network for rare neurological diseases. Dr. Lavorgna has been honored with numerous awards for his innovative work, including the National Observatory on Women's Health Award and the Novartis International Award for Best Digital Project. He also runs NeuroDigit, a spin-off focused on medical technology research and development.

Carol Marsh

Dr Carol Marsh OBE is the Engineering Director at Celestia UK, a Visiting Professor at Edinburgh Napier University (ENU), a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Deacon of the Hammermen of Edinburgh, a Trustee and Vice-President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Vice-President of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts (RSSA), Treasurer of Engineering Scotland and a member of several boards. Carol graduated with an HND in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from ENU in 1985 and was awarded a degree of Doctor of Engineering in System Level Integration from the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde in 2011, so she is an alumnus of 5 Scottish Universities.
She has worked in the field of electronics for 40 years, specialising in programmable logic. Carol has published 11 papers including 3 journal papers, been featured in newspapers and magazines and presented many times including at the Edinburgh Science Festival.
A winner of many technology, and diversity awards she was Strathclyde University’s Alumni of the Year in 2022, received an Honorary Doctorate from ENU in 2023, was inducted into the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame in 2023 and was awarded an OBE in 2020 for services to Diversity and Inclusion in Electronic Engineering. Carol is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the IET, IES, RSSA, and the Women’s Engineering Society (WES), Past President of WES, a Burgess of the City of Edinburgh, a STEM Ambassador, a Fellow Advisor and a Professional Registration Advisor and Interviewer.