It’s Ada Lovelace Day and once again we’re delighted to introduce you to “30 women in robotics you need to know about”! From 13 year old Avye Couloute to Bala Krishnamurthy who worked alongside the ‘Father of Robotics’ Joseph Engelberger in the 1970s & 1980s, these women showcase a wide range of roles in robotics. We hope these short bios will provide a world of inspiration, in our eighth Women in Robotics list!
In 2020, we showcase women in robotics in China, Japan,
Malaysia, Israel, Australia, Canada, United States, United Kingdom,
Switzerland, Israel, Norway, Spain, The Netherlands, India and Iran. There are
researchers, industry leaders, and artists. Some women are at the start of
their careers, while others have literally written the book, the program or the
standards.
We publish this list because the lack of visibility of women
in robotics leads to the unconscious perception that women aren’t making
newsworthy contributions. We encourage you to use our lists to help find women
for keynotes, panels, interviews etc. Sadly, the daily experience of most women
in robotics still looks like this famous NASA control room shot from the 1969
Apollo 11 moon landing, with one solitary woman in the team. It has taken sixty
years for the trailblazers like Joann Morgan, Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy
Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Poppy Northcutt to become well known. And finally now
we have a woman, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, serving as Launch Director for the
upcoming Artemis Mission, and another, Gwynne Shotwell, serving as President
and COO of SpaceX.
It’s Ada Lovelace Day and once again we’re delighted to
introduce you to “30 women in robotics you need to know about”! From 13 year
old Avye Couloute to Bala Krishnamurthy who worked alongside the ‘Father of
Robotics’ Joseph Engelberger in the 1970s & 1980s, these women showcase a
wide range of roles in robotics. We hope these short bios will provide a world
of inspiration, in our eighth Women in Robotics list!
In 2020, we showcase women in robotics in China, Japan,
Malaysia, Israel, Australia, Canada, United States, United Kingdom,
Switzerland, Israel, Norway, Spain, The Netherlands, India and Iran. There are
researchers, industry leaders, and artists. Some women are at the start of
their careers, while others have literally written the book, the program or the
standards.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
– Members of the Kennedy Space Center government-industry team rise from their
consoles within the Launch Control Center to watch the Apollo 11 liftoff
through a window. Photo credit: NASA
We publish this list because the lack of visibility of women
in robotics leads to the unconscious perception that women aren’t making newsworthy
contributions. We encourage you to use our lists to help find women for
keynotes, panels, interviews etc. Sadly, the daily experience of most women in
robotics still looks like this famous NASA control room shot from the 1969
Apollo 11 moon landing, with one solitary woman in the team. It has taken sixty
years for the trailblazers like Joann Morgan, Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy
Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Poppy Northcutt to become well known. And finally now
we have a woman, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, serving as Launch Director for the
upcoming Artemis Mission, and another, Gwynne Shotwell, serving as President
and COO of SpaceX.
In celebration of
Women’s History Month, the “Women of Launch Control” working in Exploration
Ground Systems take time out of their Artemis I launch planning to pose for a
photo in Firing Room 1 of the Launch Control Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space
Center in Florida on March 4, 2020. Artemis I will be the first integrated
flight test of the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket, the system
that will ultimately land the first woman and the next man on the Moon. Photo
credit: NASA/Glenn Benson
In 2019, women still accounted for less than a quarter
(23.6%) of those working in natural and applied sciences and related occupations.
In these occupations, women earned, on average, $0.76 to every $1.00 earned by
men in annual wages, salaries, and commissions in 2018. [ref Catalyst.org ]
This issue is even more pervasive and devastating if you are
a person of color. We have always strived to showcase a wide range of origins
and ethnicities in our annual list, and this year, as well as four African
American roboticists, our list includes the first African American female CEO
of a company valued over $1Billion USD. This is just a small step forward, but
we’re pleased to announce the recent launch of the Black in Robotics
organization, as well as greater recognition of the citation problem.
The citation problem is expected to significantly
disadvantage women and people of color due to the historical lack of women
followed by the recent growth of large scientific teams, multiplying exclusion.
For example, Nature recently published a paper on the impact of NumPy, a
significant scientific resource. NumPy was originally developed by many
contributors. But the authoritative citation is likely to belong to this
description paper, which has 26 authors, all male. [ref Space Australia]
On a positive note, many individuals and organizations
intentionally try to reverse this bias. For example, Tulane University just
published a guide to help you calculate how much of your reading list includes
female authors and a citation guide, similar to the CiteHer campaign from
BlackComputeher.org. And as Bram Vanderborght,
editor of IEEE Robotics and Automation magazine pointed out in the March 2020
issue, “Scientists are starting to consider how gender biases materialize in
physical robots. The danger is that robot makers, consciously or not, may
reinforce gender stereotypes and inadvertently create even greater deterrents
for young, underrepresented people interested in joining our field.”
We hope you are inspired by these profiles, and if you want
to work in robotics too, please join us at Women in Robotics. We are now a
501(c)(3) non-profit organization, but even so, this post wouldn’t be possible
if not for the hard work of volunteers; Andra Keay, Hallie Siegel, Sabine
Hauert, Sunita Pokharel, Ioannis Erripis, Ron Thalanki and Daniel Carrillo
Zapata.