Ada Lovelace Day Live is back! The annual ‘science cabaret’ returns with a fantastic line-up of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), who will share their experiences, insights and expertise, inspiring and empowering the next generation of women in STEM.
Hosted by comedian Helen Arney, the show will feature Jennifer Rohn, head of the Centre for Urological Biology, University College London, Azza Eltraify, senior software engineer at Ultracell Networks Ltd, Sophie Carr, mathematician, Bays Consulting Limited, Aarathi Prasad, writer, broadcaster, geneticist and Anjana Khatwa, Earth scientist and presenter, Antonia Pontiki, biomedical engineer at King's College London, and Rosie Curran Crawley, presenter at L'Oreal Young Scientist Centre. For full details of all our speakers and their talks, take a look at the Ada Lovelace Day website.
Now in its 15th year, Ada Lovelace Day Live is a global celebration, highlighting and honouring the achievements of women in STEM. It is named after Ada Lovelace, the world's first published computer programmer.
Whilst we celebrate in London, other groups will organise their own events around the world, raising awareness of women’s accomplishments and inspiring girls to pursue careers in STEM, shaping a more inclusive future together.
Ada Lovelace Day would like to thank our host, the Royal Institution, and our media partner, Stylist, Redgate, The Information Lab's Data School and dxw, for their support this year. Find out more about them on the Ada Lovelace Day website.
Event type
This is a theatre and livestream event for an adult audience, where the speakers and audience in our Theatre are joined by our audience online.
By booking to attend events at the Royal Institution, you confirm that you have read and accept the Ri's event terms and conditions. You also agree to abide by our code of conduct, and help to create a great experience for yourself and your fellow participants.
For any queries regarding this event please get in touch by phone 020 7409 2992 or email events@ri.ac.uk.
About Helen Arney
Writer, science presenter, geek songstress and ‘Voice of an Angle’ Helen Arney has appeared on TV, radio and in theatres across the world with her unique mix of stand-up, songs and science. You might have seen her explaining physics while riding a rollercoaster for BBC2 Coast, electrifying Sandi Toksvig on QI, singing the periodic table on Channel 4, smashing a wine glass with the power of her voice live on Blue Peter, hosting Outrageous Acts Of Science on Discovery Channel, or touring with science comedy phenomenon Festival of the Spoken Nerd. She also features as the voice of the bubble chamber in several collaborations between artist Yu-Chen Wang and CERN, and as the voice of the Periodic Table on Amazon Alexa in the US.
Helen is currently working on several full-length musical theatre projects about astounding women in STEMM, and has filled several notebooks with rhymes for Uranus (none of which are printable here).
About Jennifer Rohn
Prof Jennifer Rohn is Head of the Centre for Urological Biology, University College London.
Jenny is Head of the Centre for Urological Biology in the Department of Renal Medicine in the Division of Medicine at University College London. Jenny runs a research laboratory studying urinary tract infection, an incredibly common malady that afflicts hundreds of millions of people each year and inflicts a tremendous healthcare burden. Despite this, like many diseases primarily affecting women, UTI has been historically understudied, and there have been no new therapies developed since Alexander Fleming discovered antibiotics nearly a century ago. Jenny and her team are working hard to find better ways to treat this notoriously tricky infection, where the bacteria have evolved many devious strategies to subvert our immune defences.
A dual USA/UK citizen, Jenny earned her PhD in Microbiology at the University of Washington, Seattle USA in 1996. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute and a group leader position in a start-up biotech company in the Netherlands, she re-joined academia at University College London in 2006 with a Wellcome fellowship and was promoted to Professor in 2021.
In her not-so-spare time, Jenny is also a science writer/communicator and public speaker, and frequently appears on radio, television and other broadcast and print media as a scientific expert in infectious diseases. She is the author of three published ‘lab lit’ novels about scientists (Experimental Heart, and The Honest Look, both from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, New York; and Cat Zero, from Bitingduck Press), and various published short stories. She also founded and edits LabLit.com, a website dedicated to scientific culture, literature and all things “geek chic”.
About Azza Eltraify
Dr Azza E A Eltraify is a Project Manager and Senior Software Engineer for Ultracell Networks Ltd, a University of Leeds spinout focused on transforming networking infrastructures to improve energy efficiency and sustainability. Azza holds a PhD in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Leeds and an MSc in Networking and Computer Architecture from the University of Khartoum.
She worked at the University of Leeds as a research fellow in optimising power efficiency and developing PON Architectures for future data centres. She led the development of several experiments on data centre architectures. Additionally, she currently holds the General Secretary position for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) EEICT working group and the Green ICT standards committee focusing on developing energy efficient standards for Data Centres and Core Networks.
About Sophie Carr
Dr Sophie Carr is the founder and director of Bays Consulting. Sophie’s first love was Lego, then aeroplanes and her career followed suit. She trained as an engineer and whilst working full time took a PhD in Bayesian Belief Networks and has worked in data analytics ever since. Or to put it another way, Sophie has made a living out of finding patterns. Outside of work, Sophie is the Vice President for education and statistical literacy at the Royal Statistical Society and the World’s Most Interesting Mathematician.
About Aarathi Prasad
Aarathi Prasad is a writer, broadcaster, and researcher interested in the intersection of science and technology with cultures, history, health, and the environment. She is the author of Silk: A History in Three Metamorphoses (2023), In The Bonesetter’s Waiting Room: Travels Through Indian Medicine (2016) which was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and won the Popular Medicine Award at the BMA Awards 2017, and Like A Virgin: How Science is Redesigning the Rules of Sex (2012).
Aarathi has a PhD in genetics from Imperial College London and is an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London’s Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, where she is part of an international team excavating and analysing ancient DNA from archaeological sites in Valencia, Rome, and Pompeii.
About Anjana Khatwa
Dr Anjana Khatwa is an Earth Scientist specialising in bringing stories about the origins and formation of natural landscapes to life for a wide range of audiences.
Anjana has appeared on BBC Four Beach Live as the show’s resident geologist expert, engaging audiences with her insight and knowledge about geology and fossils. She has also appeared on many shows, including ITV’s This Morning Channel 5’s My Cornwall with Fern Britton, BBC Two’s Villages by the Sea and Fossil Detectives, and More 4’s Britain’s Novel Landscapes, The History Channel’s How the Earth was made and PBS’s Treasures of the Earth.
She is an established learning professional and has published numerous papers on glacial geology, developed award winning teaching resources and won the Royal Geographical Society Geographical Award for excellence in educating the public about the Jurassic Coast.
Her website is www.anjanakhatwa.com
About Antonia Pontiki
Dr Antonia Pontiki is a teaching fellow in biomedical engineering at King's College London. Antonia teaches undergraduate courses and is also a researcher in the Department of Surgical & Intervention Engineering. Her research interests include chest wall reconstruction for cancer patients, 3D printing, artificial organs, biocompatible materials, and surgical simulators.
She completed her PhD at King’s College London in 2022 where she investigated the use of 3D printing in thoracic surgery. She is currently working with undergraduate and postgraduate students on the development of surgical simulators for training and practising surgical interventions, including chest wall, urological and head & neck simulators, in an effort to address the ethical and financial implications of using animals or cadavers in medical education.
About Rosie Curran Crawley
Rosie presents a wide range of exciting science workshops to young people aged 7-18 in the L’Oréal Young Scientist Centre. Having struggled to find the fun in science when she was at school, she now loves working as a science communicator bringing science to life for young people just like her!
Rosie first worked at the Royal Institution in 2018 as a laboratory assistant before going to university. Having gained a first-class BSc in biochemistry at the University of Bristol, she has worked as a freelance presenter for Wonderstruck and Great Scott! Productions at events across the UK and was excited to return to the Ri at the beginning of 2023.
Accessibility
The event will take place on the first floor and there is step-free access from the street via lift.
The closest underground station is Green Park, which is step-free.
There is space at floor level in the theatre for wheelchair users.
Seating is usually unreserved for our events. If you and your group require seating reservations, please do let us know by emailing us at events@ri.ac.uk, and we’ll be more than happy to help.
Carers can receive a free ticket to an event by emailing events@ri.ac.uk.
Our theatre is equipped with an Audio Induction Loop.
Covid guidelines
Face masks are no longer mandatory and wearing one in our Theatre and at other Ri events is at your discretion, however please do not attend the Ri if you are displaying Covid symptoms or, if you have tested, the result remains positive. Thank you for respecting other people and their choices, and for helping us keep all of our visitors and staff safe and well.
Event terms and conditions
Booking conditions
Eventbrite
Online booking for Royal Institution events is run by a third-party service, Eventbrite (www.eventbrite.co.uk).
To book Royal Institution events through Eventbrite users must register with Eventbrite and set-up user account with a unique email and password. All information provided by you or collected by Eventbrite in connection with the Services is governed by Eventbrite's Privacy Policy, a copy of which is located at www.eventbrite.com/privacypolicy. The Royal Institution reserves the right to send you emails relating to the specific event(s) you have booked.
View the full Eventbrite terms of service (www.eventbrite.com/tos)
Errors
Errors made by you when entering your data, are your responsibility and the Royal Institution will not be held responsible for any inconvenience caused by the supply of incorrect personal information, nor will we offer refunds on any accidental purchases made. It is your responsibility to check that the tickets issued to you are accurate.
Event partners
The Royal Institution occasionally runs events in partnership with other organisations, learned societies and charities. In this instance we reserve the right to share your contact details with these third parties, solely for the purpose of providing you with information relating to that event.
Public events
Refunds and exchanging tickets
The Royal Institution will only guarantee a refund if the event is cancelled by us. Our liability in this case will be limited to the face value of your tickets.
If you wish to cancel your booking, you must let us know 48 hours before the start of the event.
Eventbrite bookings
The Royal Institution may allow users to request ticket refunds on online ticket purchases through Eventbrite at our discretion.
To request a refund, users must log into their personal Eventbrite account no less than 48 hours before the event. Booking fees are non-refundable.
Phone bookings
If you have purchased tickets by phone and wish to cancel your booking, you must call us at least one working day prior to the start of the event. To request a refund, please phone 020 7409 2992 or email events@ri.ac.uk.
Free tickets may be released at any time by the user at no charge.
Science Short Courses
For Science Short Courses, attendees may request a refund up to 7 days before the start of the course. After this point, a refund cannot be offered.
Member tickets
You must ensure that you book only the tickets for which you are eligible based on your level of membership at the time of the event. The Royal Institution reserves the right to cancel your ticket if member ticket eligibility criteria are not met.
Concessions
Concession tickets are available for the following groups:
- Aged 66 or over
- Aged 16 or under
- Full-time students
- Unwaged
- Anyone in receipt of Universal Credit
- Disabled
All children aged 4 and above need a ticket to attent events at the Ri.
Payment
For online payments processed through Eventbrite payments may be made using American Express, MasterCard, Visa, or Visa Debit.
Payments made by phone are processed by a secure Tier 1 DSS compliant payment processor. We accept MasterCard, Visa, Visa Delta, Maestro and American Express. We cannot accept Solo, Visa Electron or Diners cards.
Bookings on behalf of a party of people
If you are booking on behalf of a party, you accept these terms and conditions on behalf of all members of your party and are responsible for all payments due from the party.
Age suitability
Unless specified, our public events are suitable for ages 15 and above. However for most events, younger children are more than welcome to attend with parental permission.
Children aged under 13 years must be with accompanying adult. If you are unsure of the suitability of an event for a young person, please contact the Public Programme team at events@ri.ac.uk.
Freedom of speech
The Royal Institution is a forum for the free and open discussion of ideas, and we recognise the fundamental importance of freedom of speech within the law. All speakers who contribute to any of our programmes represent their own views and do not necessarily represent the views of the Royal Institution.
Livestream events
Before the event
To gain access to our online events, you will need to book a ticket through our Website. The ‘Book Tickets’ button will take you to the Eventbrite page for the same event. Our prices range from £3 for Ri Members or Ri Patrons, to £20.
If you are a Ri Member or Ri Patron, and want to choose a higher priced ticket, you are free to do so.
Once you have purchased your ticket, you will get an email confirmation from Eventbrite.
There will be two reminder emails sent out. One 2 hours before the event takes place and one 10 minutes before the event takes place. These will have an option to log in through Eventbrite to watch the event, or use the direct webpage link.
During the event
We aim to go live 5 minutes before the event begins.
If you have a blank screen or no sound, please refresh the page. Sometimes for the sound, you will need to actively unmute the video by pressing the volume icon on the video itself.
If you’re still having issues at the start time of the event, you can either:
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Contact us through the chat box on the webpage
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Email us through Eventbrite
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Email us directly through events@ri.ac.uk
There are some occasions where technology works against us, and we will have to postpone the event. We will notify you:
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Via the chat box. The host will keep you updated between 5 mins before the start and the cut off time of 15 minutes after the start.
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Via email. This may be slightly more delayed response but the host will answer you there.
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Finally, via Eventbrite email. This will go to all audience members and will be sent if the event is being postponed.
After the event
Ticket holders will be able to rewatch the recording of the event for two weeks after the event takes place. A reminder of this will be sent out via Eventbrite email the day after the event.
We try to upload our events to our YouTube channel within a couple months’ time. Here, it is free for everyone to view.
Find out more
Read all our livestream FAQs here.
Holiday workshops
Refunds and exchanging tickets
The Royal Institution will only guarantee a refund if the event is cancelled by us. Our liability in this case will be limited to the face value of your tickets. If you have purchased tickets by phone and wish to cancel your booking, please phone 020 7409 2992 or email events@ri.ac.uk. If you have purchased tickets via Eventbrite and wish to cancel your booking you will need to log into your personal Eventbrite account. You may only request a refund if you have cancelled your ticket at least two weeks (14 days) prior to the workshop start date. After this date, a refund may be possible, but only if there is someone on the waiting list who can take your place.
Age restrictions
Holiday workshops are very strictly for students within the age criteria advertised for each event. We are unable to accept bookings for students outside these ages and any bookings made for students who are not of the correct age at the time of the workshop will be cancelled. This is to make sure students attending can get the most out of their experience.
Other information
Workshops which run from 11am to 3pm include a lunch break and students must bring a packed lunch and a drink. For ages 15–18, students will be allowed the leave the building during this break. For ages 12–14, only when permission has been given at the time of booking will students be allowed to leave unattended. For ages 7–8 and 9–11, students will be fully supervised and only allowed to leave the building when collected by their responsible adult.
If students have any allergies, medical conditions or access requirements please inform us of these at the time of booking, so we have time to make any adjustments required. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us via events@ri.ac.uk.
Attending Ri events
Event changes
The Royal Institution reserves the right to make any alterations to speakers, event content, event timing and/or event venue, and will make reasonable efforts to contact audience members to inform them of any changes. The Royal Institution will not be held liable for any changes made to the advertised event.
Right to refuse and search
The Royal Institution reserves the right to refuse you admission if, in its reasonable opinion, your admission to the venue might:
- Be a risk to the safety of the audience and/or yourself, and/or
- Affect the enjoyment of members of the audience, and/or
- Affect the running of the event
For example, if you act aggressively and/or appear to be under the influence of drink and/or drugs, you will be refused admission. We may also request you to leave (taking any such appropriate action that may be necessary to enforce this right) before or during events for any of the reasons given above. Should you be refused admission or requested to leave you will not be entitled to a refund. The Royal Institution may also, on certain occasions, have to conduct security searches to ensure your safety.
Children
All children under the age of 13 must be accompanied by an adult while in the theatre. The Royal Institution reserves the right to refuse admission to an unaccompanied child under the age of 13.
All children aged 4 and above need a ticket to attent events at the Ri.
Latecomers
The Royal Institution will, in most cases, be able to seat you if you arrive late to an event. However, we reserve the right to refuse you admission if you do not arrive by the start of the event. We also reserve the right to re-sell your ticket if you have not arrived by the start of the event. In the event of this occurring, we will endeavour to find you a seat or standing room, but this cannot be guaranteed.
Risk assessments
For a copy of the risk assessment prepared for schools attending Royal Institution events, please email schools@ri.ac.uk
Filming and recording
By attending a Royal Institution event, audience members consent to being filmed, livestreamed, recorded and photographed. Audience members grant the Royal Institution the right to use recordings of any type made of their attendance in any and all media, and by means of publicity and promotion relating to the Royal Institution. School parties should ensure that appropriate parental permission is obtained before attendance at any Royal Institution event.
The unauthorised use of photographic, sound or film equipment in the venue is strictly prohibited. If you wish to use this equipment, please contact the Events Team prior to the start of the event. The copyright is assigned to the Ri for any recordings of events produced by the Ri. Unauthorised recording may result in content being destroyed, and your removal from the event without a ticket refund.
Electronic equipment
All electronic equipment, especially mobile phones, must be set to silent before entering the Theatre and/or any other spaces where events are taking place.
Smoking
The Royal Institution operates a non-smoking policy throughout its entire building.
Events that supersede these terms and conditions
Some special events, for example the CHRISTMAS LECTURES, have Terms and Conditions for booking and attendance that supersede the ones given here. In those cases we will inform you of the new Terms and Conditions on booking.
