IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2018 - 103

WOMEN IN ENGINEERING

Novel Techniques
to Solve
Workshops
to Diversify
Space-Exploration
Problems
the
Next Generation
of Roboticists
By Lydia
NameTapia
name, affliation;
By
Name name, affliation;

Y

ou may be surprised to learn
that the IEEE Women in Engi-
neering (WIE) Committee has
been working for almost a quar-
ter of a century to promote women
engineers and scientists and also inspire
girls to pursue careers in engineering.
Subsequently, the IEEE Robotics and
Automation Society (RAS) WIE group
was formed to inspire, engage, and
advance women in robotics and auto-
mation. Our RAS WIE Committee is
excited to lead new initiatives that can
continue to strengthen our robotics and
automation community as we head into
the 25th anniversary of WIE.
To begin, I will introduce our com-
mittee and some upcoming activities.
Specifically, I want to highlight an event
whose outcomes continue to motivate
my efforts. This event was a workshop
that changed perceptions and motivated
students to pursue educational paths
that would support their budding inter-
est in robotics and automation.
RAS WIE Committee
Our committee has added several new
members who were especially chosen to
capture an inclusive team that spans
diverse scientific and technical back-
grounds, a spectrum of academic and
industrial experiences, and a variety of
countries of origin. Current members of
the committee include myself, Lydia
Tapia, University of New Mexico, Albu-
querque, as the new chair, along with
the following:

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2018.2853401
Date of publication: 12 September 2018

Nancy Amato, Texas A&M Universi-
ty, College Station
● Wolfram Burgard, University of Frei-
burg, Germany
● Raja Chatila, Pierre and Marie Curie
University, Paris, France
● Chinwe Ekenna, University at Alba-
ny, State University of New York
● Aleksandra Faust, Google, Mountain
View, California
● Maria Gini, University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis
● Ayanna Howard, Georgia Tech, Atlanta
● Hadas Kress-Gazit, Cornell Universi-
ty, Ithaca, New York
● Laura Margheri, Imperial Col lege
London, United Kingdom
● Allison Okamura, Stanford Universi-
ty, California
● David Orin, The Ohio State Uni-
versity, Columbus
● Hong Qiao, University of Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Beijing
● Karinne Ramírez-Amaro, Technical
University of Munich, Germany
● Daniela Rus, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, Cambridge
● Satoshi Tadokoro, Tohoku University,
Sendai, Japan
● Carme Torras, Institut de Robòtica
Informàtica Industrial, Barcelona,
Spain
● Jing Xiao, Worcester Polytechnic In-
stitute, Massachusetts.
I encourage you to introduce your-
self to one of our committee members.
You can find us at the WIE lunches held
at every IEEE International Conference
on Robotics and Automation (ICRA),
the IEEE/Robotics Society of Japan
International Conference on Intelligent
●

Robots and Systems, and the IEEE
International Conference on Automa-
tion Science and Engineering Confer-
ence. One new initiative, led by Hadas
Kress-Grazit with assistance from sever-
al committee members and the RAS
Members Activities Board, is the study
and development of inclusive best prac-
tices for RAS. To begin this pursuit, the
team is gathering data to explore the
gender representation of our communi-
ty's conference organization committees
and invited speakers. We hope that this
collaboration with the RAS Conference
Activities Board will help to both grow
and foster the inclusive community of
RAS that we cherish.
Our motivation for upholding the
RAS WIE charge is often highly per-
sonal. One of my prominent memo-
ries is of an e-mail from a student
after a workshop that I hosted. She
said that it was "life changing." This
workshop was aimed at helping
undergraduates from underrepresent-
ed backgrounds become interested in
and knowledgeable about robotics
and automation research. Hosted at
both the ICRA and the Robotics Sci-
ence and Systems Conference in 2015
and 2016, the workshops funded
almost 50 students to attend the con-
ferences and the one-day Becoming a
Robot Guru Workshop.
Becoming a Robot Guru
Workshop
The diversity of attendees at Robot
Guru was inspiring and included
women, African Americans, Native
Americans, Hispanics, and disabled

september 2018

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