Dr Shirley Atkinson is an academic from South Devon. Her specialism is data application development using web technologies. In 2008 she completed her PhD looking at how the Semantic Web can affect privacy and has supervised a number of PhD students since. She has taught web application development and project management for over 16 years.

In her personal life Shirley has volunteered for a national children's charity - the Woodcraft Folk, been a governor for the local primary school and now volunteers on a heritage railway - The Tallylyn.