Profile
Johanna Walker
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About Me:
I live with my two daughters and three (yes, three) cats in a village by the sea in Hampshire. I love walking on the beach and going to the gym and lifting weights.
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Although most people do their PhDs straight after university, I had a career in e-commerce before I started my research training and went back to university after I had had children. I was older than some of my professors! My PhD is in Web Science, and I am old enough to remember when the web was invented. I specifically researched open data, which is data that is publicly available for anyone to use, which has only been around for a decade. So I am lucky enough to research new and exciting innovations
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My pronouns are:
She/her
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My Work:
I’m looking at how people use AI like ChatGPT to help them in their work.
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People enjoy using technologies like ChatGPT because it’s possible to interact with them using the same words you would use to talk to people – you can say ‘hey chatGPT, please write me an essay about Henry V’. You can also use the web to help you find the information to write an essay about Henry V, but the web won’t pull it all together for you in words that sound like you wrote it. That needs ‘generative AI’ – AI that can generate, or make, things (in this case, an essay). My research looks at how this generative AI can be used to help people find data and then use it to create new insights and ideas.
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My Typical Day:
I live right on the south coast of England but I work in London, which is about a 2 hour journey. So I only go to my university one day a week, but I love that day! My department is right in the middle of London. My team, which is composed of a professor, a lecturer, lots of researchers and people who are doing PhDs, meet every Monday to update each other, and share our research. It’s a great day as I always learn so much from my colleagues. My department is not the only department that is studying AI, as its such a vast subject that is relevant to many parts of life. So I like seeing what aspects of AI other departments are researching.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
One of the best things I did was at my previous university, when we created an activity with loom bands that showed people how social media companies learnt things about them when they uploaded photos to Insta, Tiktok etc. We took this activity to lots of festivals and I’d like to come up with another activity that showed people how AI uses information about them, and take it to some more festivals.
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Education:
10 GCSEs and 3 A-levels at Bedales, Hampshire
Degree in English and Religious Studies at Leeds University
A Masters of Business Administration at London Business School
A Masters in Web Science and a PhD in Web Science at Southampton University
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Qualifications:
GSCE: 4As, 5Bs and 1C (art!)
A-Level: English (A), History (B), Geography (B)
STEP English (2)
BA(Hons) 2.1
MBA (Distinction)
MSc (Distinction)
PhD
I am also a qualified massage therapist!
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Work History:
Communications Manager at The British American Chamber of Commerce, New York
E Commerce Producer at AOL, an internet broadband company, London
Content and Commerce Producer at an e-commerce start up, London
Head of Content at Thomascook.com, Peterborough
Consultant, Entrepreneurship Institute, London Business School
Lots more consultancy jobs
Research Assistant, Computer Science, Southampton university
Research Fellow (after I got my PhD), Southampton University
Research Associate, Informatics, King’s College London
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My Interview
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My favourite CHRISTMAS LECTURES memory is:
The bell-pushing experiment - a brilliant example of how we think we are giving clear instructions but computers interpret them quite differently
How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
mum and AI investigator
What did you want to be after you left school?
Richer than I am!
Were you ever in trouble at school?
I was once suspended from school!
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
Psychologist, so I could chat to people all day
Who is your favourite singer or band?
If I don't say Taylor Swift my daughter will never speak to me again
What's your favourite food?
Bacon sandwich (sorry piggies)
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
I would like my children to brush their teeth without being asked 100 times, to not leave sweet wrappers under the sofa and to do the washing up occasionally! (I know I am asking too much!)
Tell us a joke.
There once was a man from Australia, who painted his bum like a dahlia. A penny a smell was all very well but tuppence a look was a failure.
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