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MassRobotics, a robotics innovation group, introduced its inaugural Robotics Medal and Rising Star recipients. The Robotics Medal was created to acknowledge the wide-ranging influence of feminine researchers specializing in the event of robotics across the globe. That is awarded to a woman-identifying scholar/school nominated professor in robotics to acknowledge their impactful contributions to the sector and features a $50,000 prize. The Rising Star Award acknowledges up-and-coming woman-identifying individuals making strides and advancing the sector of robotics and features a $5,000 prize.

The MassRobotics Robotics Medal award, sponsored by Amazon Robotics, was offered to Nancy Amato on the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for her important contributions to the sector of robotics, notably for her analysis on the algorithmic foundations of movement planning, computational biology, computational geometry, and parallel computing.

Alyssa Nicole Pierson, at Boston College, was awarded the MassRobotics Rising Star in Robotics Medal for her key contributions to the cooperative, distributed management of multi-agent groups.

To encourage variety within the discipline of robotics, Amazon established an endowment with MassRobotics in 2022 to assist these two annual awards. The aim of The Robotics Medal shouldn’t be solely to have fun particular person achievements but additionally to encourage and encourage girls and different underrepresented teams to take part in shaping the way forward for the world by way of robotics.  

“By endowing the Robotics Medal, we aspire to showcase and have fun girls robotics professors worldwide who’ve made a major influence to the development of the sector of robotics,” Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, stated.  “It’s an honor to be the founding sponsor of the Robotics Medal and we’re grateful for the numerous contributions and teachings made by our rising stars and legendary pioneers in that discipline.”

A name for nominations started final yr with nominations coming from throughout america together with Texas, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania, in addition to across the globe from nations together with Canada, Japan, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, and India. Submissions spanned a variety of robotic know-how fields and areas of analysis, from new supplies for gripping, exoskeletons and assistive applied sciences, human-robot interplay and movement planning.

Since 2017, MassRobotics has grown from a Massachusetts-based incubator to a world robotics hub, serving to assist the adoption of robotics worldwide and offering startups with the sources wanted to develop and scale. Of the present 80 startups that MassRobotics homes at its facility in Boston, greater than 50% are from out of state and 25% are from exterior the U.S.

MassRobotics hosts STEM and robotics-related initiatives particularly focused at highschool girls and continues to advertise girls in robotics by way of occasions and networking to make sure girls are acknowledged and heard.

“We have been thrilled by the overwhelming variety of certified nominations we acquired and impressed with the variety of robotic fields and analysis occurring throughout the globe,” stated Joyce Sidopoulos, cofounder at MassRobotics. “It displays the highly effective contributions girls have made and can proceed to make to this necessary, vibrant and rising discipline supporting almost all industries.”

The Robotics Medal and Rising Star recipients have been chosen by a committee of robotics specialists, led by MassRobotics, which convened a number of occasions and methodically evaluated the importance, depth and originality of technical contributions every nominee has made within the general discipline of robotics.

“The sector of robotics requires the distinctive insights, inventiveness, and management of extra feminine professionals to propel the science, engineering, and purposes of this significant self-discipline ahead, and to encourage the following wave of innovators,” Daniela Rus, Director of the Laptop Science and Synthetic Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT and member of the MassRobotics board, stated. “The Robotics Medal signifies excess of its substantial financial award. It symbolizes an acknowledgment and celebration of the outstanding achievements of girls who not solely pioneer within the discipline, but additionally encourage as function fashions, sparking the curiosity and ambition of the forthcoming technology of roboticists.”

A proper Gala awarding the medals and celebrating the winners shall be held in Boston on the Museum of Science on October twenty first. The Museum of Science will spotlight the medal winners of their ongoing Ladies in Expertise initiative. Tickets and reserved tables for the occasion shall be accessible shortly.

MassRobotics has created an endowment and welcomes contributions to assist future money prizes for The Robotics Medal. Contact [email protected] to study changing into a founding underwriter of The Robotics Medal. Nominations for the 2024 Robotics Medal and Rising Star at the moment are open. Extra data will be discovered right here.