A chat with Wendy Hall of ECS... :: Wessex Scene Online

A chat with Wendy Hall of ECS...

27th March 2006

Rate this story

Nov 06 - The next Prime Minister?
Nov 06 - Doctors “no help to degrees”
Apr 06 - New ECS Centre to include slides
Nov 07 - Talking fossils with a digger
Nov 07 - When Nick met Joe

Take us through a typical day in the life of Wendy Hall.
There is no typical day; sometimes I’m in London, sometimes abroad. I travel all over the world. If you saw my diary you’d be scared - I’m scared by it most of the time! But actually, despite being hectic, I really enjoy it.

So what’s most exciting you in your work right now?
The ECS at Southampton are collaborating with Tim Berners Lee (the inventor of the world wide web) and MIT in setting up a new research centre called the Web Science Foundation. This will raise funding to help the development of the semantic web. This is what I’m passionate about at the moment.

And what is the semantic web?
It’s about adding semantics, or knowledge, to the web. The web is series of documents designed for people to read. People then follow links they’re interested in to other websites. Search engines like Google collate this information; see how this collation has revolutionised the world. What we’re aiming to do is to make the web able to answer even more specific questions by making computers able to ‘understand’ web pages and their content. For example with the semantic web you could ask your hand-held device to book you in for a doctor’s appointment at a surgery within walking distance of your workplace with a doctor rated as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ by other users, and it would do this by matching the doctor’s schedule with your own. We’re overdue for a real revolution here.

You’ve obviously been very successful, what do think has set you apart?
I ask myself that a lot; how have I managed get where I am? One thing is confidence. This allows you to persevere when others might be tempted to give up. Perhaps enjoying what you do is another. If you’re not enjoying yourself, you won’t work hard and you won’t be successful. More personally, I seem to be good at leadership. I can inspire people, building strong teams and keeping them here. I also have a lot of fun...

And, inevitably, how has the fire affected you and the ECS?
There are people here who have really suffered. For some of them it was just soul-destroying. A massive silver lining has emerged, but I never want to go through the last few months again. It’s been very very hard. That we’ve got back on our feet so quickly is due to shear team effort. And we were well insured. The universities in New Orleans cannot rebuild because they’ve no insurance.

Lastly, how has the ECS become so internationally respected?
Good question. Hmm... to be honest, we’re just the best.

Interview: Gareth Hynes