MassRobotics Announces Winner of Inaugural Robotics Medal Recognizing Accomplishments of Women in Robotics

The inaugural MassRobotics Robotics Medal award has been presented to Nancy Amato at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for her significant contributions to the field of robotics, the Boston-based organization shared Friday.

Amato was recognized for her research on the algorithmic foundations of motion planning, computational biology, computational geometry, and parallel computing.

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

The Robotics Medal is awarded to a woman-identifying student/faculty nominated professor in robotics to recognize their impactful contributions to the field and includes a $50,000 prize awarded to the individual.

The Rising Star Award recognizes up and coming woman-identifying persons making strides and advancing the field of robotics and includes a $5,000 award given to the individual.

MassRobotics received nominations from all the over the U.S.

MassRobotics announced the winners at the IEEE ICRA conference in London on June 1, 2023.

“We were thrilled by the overwhelming number of qualified nominations we received and impressed with the diversity of robotic fields and research happening across the globe” said Joyce Sidopoulos, cofounder at MassRobotics. “It reflects the powerful contributions women have made and will continue to make to this important, vibrant and growing field supporting nearly all industries.”

The Robotics Medal and Rising Star recipients were selected by a committee of robotics experts, led by MassRobotics, which convened several times and evaluated the significance, depth and originality of technical contributions each nominee has made in the overall field of robotics. The Robotics Medal is the world’s first major prize to recognize the wide-ranging impact of female researchers focusing on the development of robotics around the globe, MassRobotics claimed.

Gala to be held at Museum of Science in Boston

A call for nominations began at last year’s ICRA conference, with nominations coming from all around the United States including Texas, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania, as well as around the globe from countries including Canada, Japan, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, and India.

Submissions spanned a wide range of robotic technology fields and areas of research, from new materials for gripping, exoskeletons and assistive technologies, human robot interaction and motion planning.

A formal Gala awarding the medals and celebrating the winners will be held in Boston at the Museum of Science on October 21st. The Museum of Science will highlight the medal winners in their ongoing Women in Technology initiative. Tickets and reserved tables for the event will be available shortly.