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Sue Black

We are delighted to announce that Professor Sue Black OBE, has recently been named as the incoming Deputy President of BCS – the Chartered Institute for IT.

Sue will take up her role in March for a term of one year before becoming President in March 2024. 

BCS exists to lead the IT industry through its ethical challenges, support the people who work in the industry, and to make IT good for society by raising standards and conduct in all areas. 

Sue’s work across the sector was recognised through the application process, spanning six months, which was fully endorsed by our Vice-Chancellor and Warden, Professor Karen O’Brien, and Head of Department for Computer Science, Professor Matthew Johnson.  

Professor Black has a long relationship with the body going back to 1995. Since then, she has been a member of council for 10 years and was responsible for creating and launching BCSWomen London, which went on to become BCSWomen, a group dedicated to supporting female and non-binary tech professionals and tackling the industry's gender gap. 

Sue is a global leader in raising awareness of the important of women in tech, raising standards across the tech industry, and was the founder of a campaign to save Bletchley Park (home of WWII code breakers) in 2008. Her work was recognised in the 2016 Queen’s New Year’s Honours List with an OBE for services to technology. 

Professor Black will be pivotal in helping to deliver on the objectives of the organisation, not only by drawing on her industry leading expertise as a Professor of Computer Science, but using her exceptional work in tech through her social enterprise, #techmums – empowering mums living in areas of disadvantage by building confidence in technology, and Durham University’s TechUP initiative – focusing on the upskilling and training of underserved groups to find roles in the tech sector. 

Following her presidency, Professor Black will then become Immediate Past Present for a year in March 2025, enabling her to continue to have a positive impact on their work.  

Find out more

 Learn more about studying Computer Science at Durham 

Find our more about the work of BCS 

Visit TechUP