Dame Stephanie Shirley, CH joins Nature Editor in Chief Magdalena Skipper as Co-Chair
Editorial Team, April 9, 2024
Dame Stephanie Shirley, CH has joined Nature Editor in Chief Magdalena Skipper to co-chair the judges panel. Dame Shirley’s storied career as an IT pioneer and philanthropist serves as a model of possibility for women in technology wishing to challenge norms and break barriers. Her indelible contributions to society are a testament to why equitable representation in the technological research community is essential.
Comment from Dame Stephanie Shirley, CH
“I am thrilled to serve as co-chair alongside Nature for the Sony Women in Technology Award. This prestigious international prize honours women engaged in the technology research and development within academia.
My eagerness to contribute stems from my deep-rooted commitment to women’s empowerment, a passion fostered during my 30 years at the software house I created for women. The Tech Show was a highlight in celebrating International Women’s Day and I am enthusiastic about witnessing the impactful contributions of today’s global women.”
Sony Women in Technology Award with Nature Co-Chairs
Dame Stephanie Shirley CH, (90) is a successful IT entrepreneur turned philanthropist. In 1962, she founded a pioneering all-woman software company in the UK, which was ultimately valued at $3 billion and made millionaires of 70 of her male and female team. Since retiring in 1993, her focus has been increasingly on philanthropy, focused on IT and her late son’s condition of autism.
Magdalena Skipper is Editor in Chief of Nature, where she leads Nature’s magazine and research editorial teams. A geneticist by training, she has considerable editorial and publishing experience: having started in Nature Publishing Group in 2001, she was Chief Editor of Nature Reviews Genetics, Senior Editor for genetics and genomics at Nature, and Executive Editor for the Nature Partner Journals. Before joining Nature as Editor in Chief she was Editor in Chief of Nature Communications. She studied sex determination at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, and Notch signaling in the vertebrate gut epithelium at the ICRF Laboratories (CRUK today), London. She is passionate about mentorship, research integrity as well as open and equitable research practice. She is the editorial champion of diversity, equality and inclusion at Springer Nature. She serves on the advisory board of the University of Oxford Centre for Personalized Medicine and of the International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publications; she is a member of the Scientific Advisory Council for the UK Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. She is a fellow of the International Science Council.