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WOMEN OF ROBOTICS
by Tom Carroll
Iwas talking with my wife, Sue, about
Women’s History month and she
asked if an article on Women of
Robotics would be an appropriate
subject for my column. She knew that
I had worked with various women in
my robotics work over the years. After
all, in September of last year I had
written about Bala Krishnamurthy in
“People of Robotics.” She has been in
the field of robotics for over 25
years and designed and developed
programming languages for Unimate’s
robots, among many other things.
I never had the opportunity to
meet Bala, just one of many thousands
of women who have specialized in
this field and have made numerous
contributions to the design and science
of robotics. Unfortunately, before
World War II, people used to typecast
men as technical types and women as
homemakers (being experts in the
more gentle fields), but Rosie the
Riveter quickly changed this assumption, for aircraft production and every
other technical field. In my years with
Rockwell, I met and worked with many
extremely talented women in technical
fields who knew more about their specialty than I could ever hope to know.
I considered NASA astronaut, Dr.
Judith Resnik, who died in the 1986
Challenger Space Shuttle explosion — a
good friend as she taught me much of
what I knew at the time about the
Shuttle’s remote manipulator system. I
was trying to use the RMS arm on my
Space Station ‘robot’ mobile manipula-tor/transporter system design and she
was a wealth of practical information
and encouragement on all parts of the
system. The depth of her knowledge in
many fields of science and engineering
just amazed me.
I happened to be at Johnson
Space Center giving a presentation to
NASA management on the mobile
transporter when we stopped for a
moment to view the TV monitor
behind me showing the launch of
Challenger. Needless to say, my
presentation ended with the explosion
of the space shuttle as I had just lost a
friend — actually two friends, who
were a great inspiration for my work.
Women in Leadership
of Robotics Groups
Many of the women whom I have
become acquainted with who are
associated with robotics do not work
only within university or industry labs,
but are actively involved with robotics
within the community. Cathy Saxton is
one individual who is one of the driving
forces behind the Seattle Robotics
Society, a group I have been involved
with since moving to Washington in
1998 (Figure 1).
Cathy is presently
the Vice President and
webmaster for the
SRS, but her involvement does not stop
there. She has also
been one of the leaders of SRS’s popular
robot workshops that
introduce newcomers
to robot building with
FIGURE 2.
Jianna Zhang
of BAIRS.
a great robot kit she helped design. She
is also involved with the SRS yearly
Robothon two-day event at Seattle
Center, and is a mentor for nearby
Issaquah High School’s FIRST team.
Jianna Zhang is another woman
who I have come to admire in the field
of robotics (Figure 2). She is an associate professor of Computer Science at
Western Washington University in
Bellingham, WA. She was the main
supporter in the establishment of the
Bellingham Artificial Intelligence and
Robotics Society (BAIRS) and is the
current President. This is a group that is
open to all in the area who have an
interest in robotics as a hobby, not just
to those in the university.
BAIRS has had several well-attended exhibits and robot fairs with Jianna
taking the lead in organizing and promoting. I have attended several of the
fairs and meetings, and Jianna and the
society should be proud of the quality
of the different robots presented and
the expertise of the many members.
FIGURE 1. Cathy Saxton of SRS.
SERVO 03.2008 79
