Stella Atkins | |
---|---|
Known for | Founding member of Systers |
Academic background | |
Education |
University of Nottingham University of Warwick |
Alma mater | University of British Columbia |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Computer science |
Institutions | Simon Fraser University |
Main interests | Medical imaging |
Stella Atkins is a Professor Emeritus in computing science at Simon Fraser University in Canada, [1] and one of the founding members of the Systers community for technical women in computing. [2] Her primary research interests are in medical computing (includes laparoscopic surgery, sleep studies and telehealth) and medical image display and analysis. [1]
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. [3] When choosing a university, Atkins chose University of Nottingham in England, because chemist Dorothy Hodgkin, who had just received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was there. [4]
After Atkins received her B.Sc. in chemistry from Nottingham University (1966), [1] 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. [4]
Atkins later became a scientific computer programmer advisor at the University of Warwick [4] in England and received her M.Phil. in computer science from there in 1976. [1] In 1985, Atkins received a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of British Columbia. [1]