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Ada Lovelace Day 2024: Celebrating Women in STEM
Ada Lovelace is widely hailed as the world's first computer programmer. Her legacy and the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) are celebrated on the second Tuesday of every October. In recognition of this year’s Ada Lovelace Day, we look at how she has helped shaped research at the IDRM and hear from postdoc Emilie Wigdor in the Sanders Group, who shares her inspiring journey in STEM.
A visionary in an era when women had little or no access to science and maths, Ada Lovelace foresaw the potential of an early mechanical computer to perform complex calculations beyond the scope of simple arithmetic. Though this computer was developed by her collaborator, mathematician Charles Babbage, it was her pioneering insights into the concept of a machine 'that could think' that forever changed the technology landscape and has inspired generations of innovators across the fields of coding and artificial intelligence, not least empowering women to follow in her footsteps.
Transforming modern research
By laying the theoretical foundation for computer programming and algorithms, Ada Lovelace’s legacy has equipped modern researchers with essential tools that make ground-breaking strides and innovations in regenerative medicine possible. Building on this foundation, the Sanders Group uses the power of computing to investigate severe neurodevelopmental disorders, which lead to serious and often life-threatening symptoms including seizures, cognitive impairment, communication problems, and motor dysfunction. They aim to use bioinformatics to identify the genetic mechanisms underlying these disorders and to develop therapies to improve the lives of those affected.
Professor Stephan Sanders says “The ability to sequence DNA at scale has transformed our understanding of biology and human disorders; it has also put life science at the forefront of the big data field. At the heart of this revolution lies the legacy of Ada Lovelace – programmable computers. When a new trainee joins the lab, our first job is to teach the fruits of this legacy, the ability to instruct computers via writing programs and to deploy these to a large computer network. With these tools we tackle questions such as why humans get ill, how the human brain works, and how we can treat severe childhood disorders.”
Celebrating women in STEM at the IDRM
Emilie Wigdor is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Sanders Group. She trained as an associate computational biologist before completing her PhD in genomics, and currently uses whole genome sequencing to understand the underlying causes of neurodevelopmental disorders. Here she tells us about some of the highs and challenges in her journey so far.
Who or what inspired you to pursue a STEM career?
At first, I’d say it was mostly curiosity. I was also fortunate to have parents who encouraged me to pursue my interests and valued intellectual curiosity. When I was in high school, my mom attended an event where Daniel Gilbert’s book Stumbling on Happiness was promoted. She handed it to me casually, thinking I might be interested. That book was my first introduction to cognition and how the brain works. I was struck by how this organ inside my head could construct such (seemingly) intangible things as perception, reality, and identity. I started reading more about the brain, and decided I wanted to pursue cognitive neuroscience in undergrad.
From there, I kept chasing the question “why” (though some scientists argue “how” is the right question—which was more or less what I meant). My mom loves to tell the story of how I constantly asked her “why” when she quizzed me for biology tests, until she finally snapped, “I don’t know why, Emilie, but this is what you need to know for the test!” I don’t think I ever dropped that persistent habit, and it’s ultimately what led me to genetics.
Now that I’m older, my motivation extends beyond curiosity. Having seen loved ones face health challenges, and hearing stories from families dealing with rare disorders, I’m driven to help—however small my contribution might be—with the skills I’ve developed.
Can you share a moment in your research career that you are particularly proud of?
I’m lucky enough that a few examples spring to mind: the first time seeing my name at the start of an authorship list, my first conference talk, my PhD thesis submission, my viva, and more recently the final paper from my PhD being accepted for publication.
These all share a common thread. When I first started in genetics, I came from a background in cognitive neuroscience and psychology. It felt like I’d been thrown into the deep end. The people around me seemed to know so much about biology, genetics, statistics, coding—or some combination of the above—and I didn’t. I used to joke that my learning curve was a vertical line. I had serious impostor syndrome. On one of my first days on the job, a colleague asked me if I had “any skills”, which he helpfully defined as “statistical or computational”. When I admitted I didn’t have much experience, he concluded, “Oh, so you don’t have any skills.” That comment stuck with me. I often questioned whether I could make a meaningful contribution to this field.
That initial doubt became a driving force for growth. I audited a graduate level stats class. I did some more reading. These accomplishments bring me immense pride because they remind me that I can overcome challenges, continuously learn, and add value to the scientific community. Now, trainees ask me questions, which reminds me of how far I’ve come. I also recognise the impact of my words—rather than deflating them, I focus on empowering them and offering a hand, throwing them a rope as they scale their own learning curves.
Can you share a project you’ve worked on that really showcases the power of bioinformatics in advancing scientific research?
One project that truly showcases the power of bioinformatics is BrainNet, where we investigate how genes are regulated—whether they’re switched on, off, or somewhere in between, like a light dimmer adjusting brightness—in the brains of autistic and non-autistic individuals. We are analysing data from millions of individual cells across different brain regions in 86 people.
The scale of this project is immense. The raw cell-level data alone amount to 12.5 terabytes—enough storage for around 3 million songs. To put that into perspective, it would take 20 years of non-stop listening to get through them! And that’s just one layer; we also collect genetic data, and we need to clean and analyse it, resulting in additional processed outputs.
Bioinformatics is what makes it all possible. Without advanced computational tools, managing and interpreting this volume of data would be unthinkable.
Ada Lovelace was known for her collaboration with Charles Babbage—how important are collaborations in your own work?
They are essential! None of my post-doc projects would be possible without our incredible collaborations and relationships with teams at University of California, San Fransisco, Yale, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, UW-Madison and Mt. Sinai. I would go so far as to say big (data) science is impossible without collaboration. There’s a reason you don’t see a lot of small author lists on high impact papers in our field. Large datasets are often critical for making robust insights, and obtaining such data usually requires collaboration.
Additionally, our work is highly interdisciplinary, involving expertise in statistics, genetics, bioinformatics, neuroscience, and experimental techniques, to name a few. It’s impossible for any one person to cover all these areas alone, so collaboration is crucial for answering the complex questions we face.
What advice would you give to young women aspiring to enter the fields of bioinformatics or data science?
I worry that answering this might give the impression that all you need is the right attitude, a trick up your sleeve, or simply determination. There are many women in bioinformatics and computational sciences, but their proportion decreases significantly beyond the post-doc stage. The barriers women face are systemic. These challenges aren’t unique to bioinformatics, but they’re present.
Early in my career, I attended a talk by the late Ben Barres, a neurobiologist who transitioned from female to male. He spoke about the barriers women in science face—lack of childcare support, assumptions of incompetence, elite male scientists being less likely to mentor female post-docs, and sexual harassment.
These issues won’t disappear overnight. In the meantime, my advice would be:
• Don’t make yourself small, even when it feels uncomfortable. You deserve to be there.
• Find your advocates and allies—and be theirs, too. Nobody does it alone.
• Remember that confidence is often mistaken for competence. This is both a tool, and a lens through which to evaluate others.
Find out more about Ada Lovelace and the impactful work of the Sanders Group.