Prof Dame Wendy Hall, DBE, Engineering & Technology, Debrett's 500 2015, People

Prof Dame Wendy Hall, DBE

Professor of Computer Science, University of Southampton

Dame Wendy Hall is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton where she was its first female professor of engineering. Hall is one of the first computer scientists to embark on serious research into multi- and hyper-media technologies and is a leading light in the development of web services. When asked what her biggest challenge has been, Hall says ‘the easy answer to that is being a woman, of course’, but she recognises that pursuing an out-of-the-ordinary career has also been difficult, being ‘out of the mainstream on both counts’. Hall was a founding director of the Web Science Research Initiative along with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and was president of the British Computer Society. She was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2009 and since 2014 has served as a commissioner for the Global Commission on Internet Governance.