Kelly Lyons
Associate Professor
Faculty of Information Studies
University of Toronto

BIOGRAPHY 

Kelly Lyons received a BSc in Computing Science from Queen's University at Kingston, Canada, in 1985. She then joined the IBM Toronto Lab before taking a leave of absence to complete her MSc (1989) and PhD (1994) at Queen’s in graph layout algorithms. She held a PhD Fellowship at the IBM Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) and returned to IBM in 1994 as the Principal Investigator of the Data Management for eCommerce project in CAS.

In 1997, Kelly left CAS to work on complex query performance in the IBM DB2 Performance and Advanced Technology department. She then became a manager with responsibility for projects in self-managing databases, next generation I/O, XML performance, and performance regression testing. She managed the CAS/DB2 projects which involved 12 PhD students and 10 professors.  In 2004, Kelly became the Head of CAS with responsibility for over 60 collaborative projects with university researchers. In 2008, she joined the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information Studies as an Associate Professor to teach and conduct research in services science, social computing, data management, and business intelligence.

Kelly has co-authored 16 refereed papers, filed 2 patents, served on program committees for various conferences, given keynote and invited presentations, and co-chaired several workshops. She has been a member of ACM since 2002 and joined the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award Committee in 2007. Kelly is on the Board of Management of the Ontario Centres of Excellence Centre for Communication and Information Technology, is an IBM Faculty Fellow, and an adjunct professor at Dalhousie and York Universities. She is very active in Women in Technology initiatives and has given several presentations to young people and teachers on this topic.

STATEMENT

I first joined ACM in 2002 as a member from industry and am now enjoying the many resources available through my membership as a university faculty member. Over the years of my membership, I have seen ACM evolve to better service its diverse constituencies, namely, software developers, practitioners, technical managers, researchers, faculty members, and students. ACM’s goal of advancing computing as a science and a profession clearly addresses the unique needs and issues of each of these groups as well as their shared desire to ensure a healthy computing field.

As a passionate computer scientist, I have been troubled by the large decline in interest in our field by young people, especially girls.  Over the years I have participated in numerous workshops and panels addressing this issue.  As an ACM Council Member-at-Large I would like to contribute to ACM’s efforts in this important area.  Through ACM’s dedication to enhancing the image of the computer scientist, and ensuring a robust educational pipeline, its members can play a role in reversing this decline and in helping interest young people in the computing field.

I also feel strongly that a collaborative community environment is an important attractor and retention feature for people in the field of computing. As a Member-at-Large, I would like to find new ways to connect ACM members through social computing technologies and communities of practice across all constituencies. Finally, I want to encourage membership from under-represented groups, especially young women, to join and participate in ACM’s activities and communities.