Famous Role Models - Well-known Figures or Heroes

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What is the Action?

Use public figures or widely accepted heroes as role models.

Quick Facts to Support this Action

A recent US study researching relationships between the role models, mentors, heroes, and participants’ interest in education, their participation in risky behaviour, levels of confidence etc. found that a third of the adolescent participants (11-18 years of age) had heroes, who included public figures, and those who had heroes showed a significant interest in education compared to those who did not.

Ways to Implement this Action

Discover the options below by expanding them.

➤ Include female figures into lecture materials and in posters on campus walls

Expose students to potential heroes by including well-known female role models in lecture material and or distributing posters on campus walls. Examples include Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, Radia Perlman, Grace Murray Hopper, Katherine Johnson, or more recently, Doina Precup, Jeannette Wing, Doina Precup, and more. Information on some of these well-known figures is available here.

➤ Use famous female figures as characters/associations in projects


Champions from Femtech.dk research initiative at computer science department of the University of Copenhagen used famous female figures as characters in their computing workshops for students that produced artifacts. For example, in the project Elze, named after cryptanalyst Elizebeth Friedman, students learned how to use a potted plant as an encryption key in one of the workshops. Here is the guide on how to recreate the Elze artifact. Another project of the same initiative was LOLA (named after LOL – Little Old Ladies, referring to women who assembled Apollo’s core memory) taught students on how to use sensors in context. Here are the instructions for LOLA.

https://www.atariwomen.org/stories/ – Atari Women Project, University of Copenhagen and University of Washington.

Atif, H., Peck, L., Connolly, M., Endres, K., Musser, L., Shalaby, M., Lehman, M., and Olympia, R.P. (2022). The Impact of Role Models, Mentors, and Heroes on Academic and Social Outcomes in Adolescents. Cureus, 14(7):e27349. doi: 10.7759/cureus.27349. PMID: 36060382; PMCID: PMC9421350.

Core memory weavers and Navajo women made the Apollo missions possible https://www.sciencenews.org/article/core-memory-weavers-navajo-apollo-raytheon-computer-nasa 

FemTech.dk – a DEI research program grounded at the Computer Science Department of the University of Copenhagen (DIKU) http://www.femtech.dk/ 

Most Influential Women in Computer Science – https://www.computerscience.org/resources/most-influential-women-computer-science/

History of Women in IT: 6 Female Pioneers in Computer Science – https://www.purdueglobal.edu/blog/information-technology/history-women-information-technology-6-female-computer-science-pioneers/

Incredible Female Role Models in STEM – https://shecancode.io/incredible-female-role-models-in-stem-who-you-should-know-about/

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Lecture (Video) - Women in Tech by Helen Fitzgerald and Owen Mackessy from MTU (Kerry), Ireland

Lecture (Video) – Women in Tech by Helen Fitzgerald and Owen Mackessy from MTU (Kerry), Ireland

Kindly sourced by Cathryn Casey, MTU (Kerry).

Lecture Slides for the Introduction to the Operating Systems Module, by Cathryn Casey, MTU (Kerry), Ireland

Lecture Slides for the Introduction to the Operating Systems Module, kindly provided by Cathryn Casey, MTU (Kerry), Ireland.