BCS president becomes Dame

18:45 2nd January 2009

President and fellow of the British Computer Society (BCS), Professor Wendy Hall is to be made a Dame in the New Year's Honours list.

It was announced that she has been awarded a DBE for her work in the field of science and technology.

Professor Hall was head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton University for five years until 2007 and in 2003 became president of BCS.

In 2005 she became the first woman to be elected senior vice-president of the Royal Academy of Engineering and in July 2008 became president of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the first non-US person to take that role.

Commenting on her award she said: "I am thrilled to have been honoured in this way. It is of course exciting for me personally and for my family, but it is also a tribute to all the people I have worked with in my career as a scientist and engineer both at Southampton and in the wider community."

Professor Hall was awarded a CBE in 2000.