outreach – Hartree Insights

Our summer as Software Engineers

In this post, we hear from two of our 2019 Summer Placement students as they share their experiences of working at the Hartree Centre. Read on to find out more about the projects they got involved with during their time as part of our Research Software Engineering team.

“I applied to the Hartree Centre having heard about STFC’s excellent culture and people from a friend who had worked with them previously. After completing the placement, I have been left excited to finish university in the hope to return to the Hartree Centre and its excellent RSE team in the future. The skills and knowledge I have gained working with HPiC have been innumerable and will all be incredibly valuable assets for me to use during the final two years of my computer science degree. I am thankful for the opportunity given to me by the Hartree Centre and the help and support given by all its staff.”
James Beck, 2nd year Computer Science student, University of Sheffield

“I decided to work at the Hartree Centre this summer because as a physicist, I am very aware of the crucial role that computing, and in particular HPC, plays in multiple areas of current research and I wanted to learn more about how it works and how it can be used. Whilst I had done some programming with python in the first two years of my degree course, I am not from a computer science background, so this placement was definitely a steep learning curve for me. I was amazed by the amount of help and support my colleagues were able to offer me, and I have learnt so much from this experience. Now I am going back for the final year of my BSc and I am keen to find ways to apply my new skills to the rest of my degree and my career, in particular for my BSc project, which I hope to undertake using applications of HPC in space physics.”
Elizabeth Porter, 2nd year Physics student, Imperial College London

The placement

Our role at the Hartree Centre was to develop interactive demos for the Hartree Centre Raspberry Pi Cluster (HPiC), an outreach tool used for demonstrating concepts and applications of high-performance computing (HPC) in public engagement scenarios. HPiC already had a small number of generic HPC demos when we arrived but we were tasked with creating more demos, based on actual Hartree Centre projects, to show off the variety of work that takes place at the Hartree Centre.

One of our first tasks was to learn how to use MPI (message passing interface). Neither of us previously had any background in HPC nor parallel computing so this would be essential knowledge for coding on HPiC. MPI is used as a standard to enable communication between processes. If you had multiple people working on one task at the same time, they would have to communicate progress or information to one another, parallel code is the same. MPI is important for any work that features parallel computing and is a big part of any code run on the HPC systems and platforms at the Hartree Centre. To get the basic introduction to MPI, we worked through an online course making sure to implement our new knowledge in practice with the course exercises. These exercises ranged from calculating pi, message “ping-pong” and traffic modelling. We both enjoyed learning MPI and now feel confident using it in future projects or throughout our studies.

Our first coded project was to design and build a (GUI) Graphical User Interface to allow people to easily select demos they may want to run on HPiC. At the start of our placement demos were run with a command line input in the terminal. These were still in the early stages of development and we were looking to develop their usability and interface. It was important that the GUI looked professional and was easy to understand, to achieve this we used large pictures which gave a demo preview, making them stand out against a black background. This was a great first project as we learnt to work together using Git and had a chance to retrain our Python programming muscles. The GUI came out great – we’ve also documented it so that it can be extended by future HPiC Demo developers.

James and Lizzie with members of the Hartree Centre Research Software Engineering team.

Testing our learning

The next challenge was a test of everything we had learnt so far. We were tasked with designing and testing a demo based on a NLP (Natural Language Processing) project completed by the Hartree Centre Data Science team. The goal of this project had been to provide annotations on structural biochemistry texts. Specifically, surrounding protein chain components at the amino acid residue level – this is at a “higher resolution” than what is normally carried out. This project would help future researchers to find papers or research related to their work instead of having to trawl through lots of existing buried research. The demo combined our new knowledge of MPI and the creation of a Python GUI and we went on to suggest that a big part of the demo could be a real time screen showing the distribution of the papers over the 19 Raspberry Pi’s that would processing them. This was difficult task and led me (James) to have to learn Python threads and PyQt5 which is knowledge I’m sure will be useful going into my third year. The user can then look at the relationships between the papers highlighting the essence of the project which is to help people find papers that are linked to one another easily.

Creating a game

In the last few weeks of the summer, I (Lizzie) started work on a demo for a recent project with Weather Logistics – an SME aiming to provide field-level seasonal weather forecasts for growers. The Hartree Centre team had recently worked with Weather Logistics to refactor and parallelise their code base, saving them over two months of compute time in producing 24 years’ worth of historical weather data. My task was to create an interactive demo based on this project, as an example of one application of supercomputing and to demonstrate the Hartree Centre’s capabilities for processing large quantities of data. After brainstorming ideas for a few days, we settled on creating a lettuce farm game, in which the user would select a 5×5 km field location anywhere in the UK. The player would then be shown graphical data for the weather conditions over a three-year time period, and given a score based on how well lettuces would have grown in this location over the time period based on weather data alone. This seemed a good choice because it would show the quantity of data available graphically and demonstrate how the data can be used to help lettuce farmers in a simple and engaging way. To create the demo I used PyQt5, Python bindings for the Qt User Interface framework. Having not used PyQt5 before, and not being very experienced in creating User Interfaces (UIs) either, getting to grips with it in just a couple of weeks was a challenge, but it was fun to create a game like this from scratch and I am now confident in my abilities to create simple UIs in future.

James explaining HPiC to a group of delegates and ambassadors at the Interact symposium

Sharing our work

On the 4 September 2019, towards the end of our placement, we had the opportunity to attend INTERACT 2019, an STFC public engagement symposium hosted at UCLan. In the morning we were able to attend workshop sessions discussing various aspects of public engagement and outreach, including how we can combat stereotypes of scientists and encourage more young people to pursue STEM subjects to higher education. Then over lunch, we ran a stall showcasing HPiC and its demos (including the new Weather Logistics demo, which was received really well) to the other delegates present. It was fantastic to be able to present our work and to get productive feedback on our demos, while also taking the opportunity to hone our presentation skills. In the afternoon we explored some of the other stalls that had been on display which covered a wide range of engagement activities in STEM, from Harry Potter-themed experiments to space and light shows in the Explorer Dome. The whole day was a great chance to engage with a wide range of people interested and/or working in outreach within STEM and to find out what research and activities other people are doing to further public engagement, as well as to show off 8 weeks of work on HPiC.

Thanks for the experience, we’ll hopefully see you all again soon.

James and Lizzie.

Who are the public, what counts as engagement and why should we care?

As big data, high performance computing and cognitive technologies start to appear in more newspaper articles, TV shows and pop up on social media hashtags, it seems to me to be more important than ever to start talking about our science and technology and the impact it makes on society.

Before I start to write the main content of this blog post, I should confess that although my background is in biomedical science, I prefer talking about science rather than actually doing it. So much so that I decided to study towards an MSc in Science Communication. This means that I spend a lot of time thinking about science and its relationship with society by reading about insights from history and the media as well as about innovation and policy research. At the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), I really enjoy working closely with those at the forefront of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), facilitating relationships between academia, industry and publics by highlighting how our work impacts businesses and the UK economy. Essentially, I enjoy answering the “So what?!” question about research.

Having worked in public engagement over the last 5 years, I am going to address some of the common misconceptions I’ve heard along the way.

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Get girls into STEM early – or risk losing them for good

On International Women’s Day, we’re looking at the gender balance in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) careers. Impact and Engagement Officer Holly Halford discusses why seeing women represented in STEM from a young age matters.

While much has been done in recent years to encourage women into STEM careers, statistics show that the UK – and indeed, the world – still has a way to go before we see equal gender representation reflected in the scientific workforce. In this post I’d like to examine the element of choice involved in this under representation, and how we can tackle it.

When pressured to recruit, companies often cite lack of applications as the reason for gender imbalance. For example, a 2014 study showed that for 50% of UK companies studied that hire IT workers, only 4% of job applicants were women. Whilst we must take into account the other influencing factors at play, evidence suggests that women are still disproportionately choosing not to follow STEM career paths.

“Only 20% of A Level physics students are female, a figure that has not changed in 25 years.”

While take-up and performance in GCSE level sciences shows little difference between genders, only 20% of A Level physics students are female, a figure that has not changed in 25 years, despite the social gender equality climate having arguably improved within that time. This indicates that more effort is needed at an earlier stage of education, to prevent that drop-off before it happens – but what kind of effort?

One way to tackle this is improving visible representation of female scientists, engineers, coders at a younger age. By the time children reach high school age, they’ve already absorbed a plethora of subtle signals – from the toys we assume they’ll prefer, to the colour of the clothes we dress them in – regarding gender norms from family, friends, teachers, the mass media and society in general. So many, in fact, that I believe it’s difficult, if not impossible, to reverse these factors which contribute to personal unconscious bias (or indeed identify any one prevailing influencer) and allow young people to make career choices objectively; gender neutrally.

According to the Women’s Engineering Society (WES), the UK has the lowest percentage of female engineering professionals in Europe, at less than 10% – something I experienced first-hand at university. Whilst studying a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, I found myself to be one of only ten female students in a year group of approx. 100 – pretty much bang on with the stats!

It’s difficult not to feel somewhat radical when faced with that reality, despite knowing you are more than entitled to be there. There’s something subtle to be said for the self-doubt that can creep in when looking around a room and seeing very few people who share your background, your life, your experiences. Even the most self-assured of minds can be forgiven for wondering: Do I belong here?

“The doubt that might cause a young woman to drop out of science or maths too soon because she doesn’t see any evidence that it is ‘for her’ is perhaps more powerful than any open hostility could be.”

The answer, of course, is yes – gender diverse businesses have time and again been proven more likely to outperform their competitors. But a lack of representation, the tiny but persistent doubt that might cause a young woman to drop out of science or maths too soon because she doesn’t see any evidence that it’s ‘for her’ is perhaps more powerful than any open hostility could be. Studies have shown that “fitting in, or gaining peer acceptance, is a primary objective of youth in the high school context and […] may be more important than academic goals”. For young children, that feeling of belonging, of being represented, cannot be overlooked if we want to change STEM statistics for the better.

I firmly believe that the most valuable thing we can do to inspire more girls into tech careers is to put more examples of real women doing real STEM jobs in front of them – and in front of the boys too – from as early an age as possible. Change starts at home, and we need to make sure children have access to resources that show the full diverse range of notable people in STEM throughout history and now, in 2017. We need to question our own preconceptions, and do our hardest not to pass them on to our children and those around us.

It’s not about telling girls they must seek STEM careers, it’s about making sure they don’t close themselves off to those options when social influences are being imposed on them at every turn.

It’s not about telling girls they must seek STEM careers, it’s about making sure they don’t close themselves off to those options prematurely when potentially limiting social influences are being imposed on them at every turn. It’s ensuring boys won’t dismiss them as potential future colleagues in STEM.

The good news is that a change in perceptions and awareness of STEM gender balance is occurring, however slowly. Improvements in representation are inching forward, from Grace Hopper and Margaret Hamilton receiving long overdue awards for their contributions to computational science to films such as Hidden Figures coming to the fore and revealing previously overlooked truths about the history of women and minorities in great scientific achievements. There is an undoubted shift in thinking – but it has been too long coming and still has a way to go.

There are many UK organisations and government initiatives already doing great work to inspire future generations of women to study STEM, but we can’t rely on outside influences to eradicate centuries of gender bias – it has to start with us. It is everyone’s responsibility to remember why diverse representation matters, and to provide it whenever they can. To question our own assumptions, and those around us – not just in the workplace, but in every aspect of our lives. (After all, isn’t that what scientists do best?) Only then, will we truly be able to give future generations the freedom to choose without bias; the freedom to choose science.

You can read about how the Science and Technology Facilities Council is supporting equality and diversity in STEM here.

Helping girls decode careers in tech

The students participate in a 3D visualisation demonstration in one of our visualisation suites. — Students participate in a 3D visualisation demonstration in one of our visualisation suites.

We recently worked with our partners at IBM to deliver an outreach event aiming to promote careers in STEM (science, technology engineering and maths) to 80 girls from high schools across the North West.

The students spent the day taking part in a mixture of talks and activities including an innovation workshop, a 3D visualisation demonstration – which took place in the Hartree Centre visualisation suite – a 3D printing demonstration, and careers Q&A with women currently working at IBM and STFC. This gave the girls a valuable opportunity to ask real people working in a technical field their advice and learn about their experiences.

Some of the girls taking part in a careers Q&A session with IBM & STFC staff. — Part of the day involved careers Q&A sessions in small groups with IBM & STFC staff.

Women have been involved in computing expertise from the very beginning – from 19th century mathematician Ada Lovelace to the communications operators and code breakers during World War II.

Director of the Hartree Centre, Alison Kennedy, also presented on her own experiences of a career in technology, identifying that women have been involved in computing expertise from the very beginning – from 19th century mathematician Ada Lovelace to the communications operators and code breakers during World War II. You can read a full recap of the day and see more pictures here.

Continue reading “Helping girls decode careers in tech”