Celebrating Innovation, Leadership, and Community: Highlights from the 3rd Annual Women in Robotics Medal Gala

MassRobotics invited our area to the third Yearly Ladies in Robotics Medal Gala, an evening committed to commemorating 2 amazing ladies that are blazing a trail in robotics technology and effect.

The gala is greater than a honors event, it’s an event of development, mentorship, and the cumulative power of our robotics community. This year’s occasion united market leaders, academics, start-up creators, and pupils, all joined by a common objective: to recognize the accomplishments of ladies that are forming the future of robotics and to influence the future generation to comply with in their steps.

An Evening of Acknowledgment and Appreciation

Thanks to Amazon Robotics for developing an endowment with MassRobotics to make certain that our medal receivers not just obtain acknowledgment however likewise a significant money honor.

We wish to expand sincere many thanks to our enrollers and companions that make this night feasible:

• Amazon Robotics— Our platinum enroller, starting companion, and advocate of programs like the yearly Drone Academy (currently in its 8th year) in addition to our yearly Gala.
• Massachusetts Innovation Collaborative— Our gold enroller and long time advocate, consisting of funding the videographer for the night.
• Harmonic Drive— A beginning and yearly enroller in addition to enroller of the nights table focal points.
• Orrick— Enroller of our Ladies Creators Table.
• And our extra table enrollers: Analog Tools, Boston College, Brown College, Locus Robotics, MIT CSAIL, MIT Media Laboratory’s Personal Robotics Team, UMass Amherst, and UMass Lowell.
  

We were likewise recognized to have participants of the MassRobotics Board present, consisting of Exec Supervisor Tom Ryden, Tom Hopcroft, and Professors Daniela Rus and Tye Brady, in addition to previous increasing celebrity recipient Dr. Alyssa Pierson from Boston College and 2024 medal recipient Teacher Cynthia Breazeal from MIT’s Media Laboratory.

Equipping the Future Generation: The Jumpstart Fellowship

At MassRobotics, we’re just as enthusiastic regarding growing the future generation of varied ability in robotics. We hold the yearly Women Jumpstart Fellowship Program, a five-month Saturday program that offers secondary school ladies with technological abilities in CAD, programs, electronic devices, and construction, in addition to mentorship from market leaders.

The fellowship, sustained by La Fondation Dassault Systèmes, MassTech Collaborative, and UMass Lowell, has actually currently finished over 98 girls, the majority of whom have actually taken place to go after STEM areas.

This year, we were pleased to speak with Mirudulaa Suginathan, a Jumpstart alumna from Associate 4 and existing UMass Amherst design trainee, that shared her trip and representations on just how the program formed her course.

We are happy to the numerous advisors that commit their Saturdays to mentor, motivating, and directing these pupils. 2 advisors particularly, Betsy Jasper and Rachel Naoum, were bestowed our inaugural Unsung Hero– Ironheart Medal Honor for their extraordinary devotion and long-term influence on the program.

Commemorating Ladies Leading Robotics

Our Board Chair and Principal Engineer of Robotics at Amazon, Tye Brady, advised us that while ladies comprise just around 19% of the robotics design labor force, the trend is moving– and with it, the future of robotics.

Tye’s motivating words highlighted that the development we’re making today originates from leaders like Ada Lovelace, Daniela Rus, and Cynthia Breazeal, and proceeds with every lady in the area today. “We are not simply developing robotics,” he claimed, “we are developing a future where technology understands no bounds and possibility understands no sex.”

Recognizing the 2025 Medal Receivers

Daniela Rus, Supervisor of MIT Computer System and Expert System Laboratory (CSAIL) and very enhanced roboticsist presented this years medal receivers.

Increasing Celebrity Medal: Teacher Tania Morimoto, UC San Diego

Teacher Morimoto was identified for her innovative operate in soft and versatile clinical robotics and human– equipment user interfaces that enhance accessibility to top notch health care. Her developments bring us closer to a globe where robotics boosts person treatment, allowing more secure, a lot more exact, and a lot more obtainable clinical treatments.

Robotics Medal: Teacher Maja Matarić, College of Southern The Golden State

The Robotics Medal, come with by a $50,000 reward, was granted to Teacher Matarić for her introducing payments to socially assistive robotics– an area she assisted specify. Her job checks out just how robotics can attach, inspire, and look after individuals, with extensive applications in rehab, education and learning, and older treatment.

In her sincere approval speech, Maja reviewed her trip from Yugoslavia to MIT to USC, attributing her family members, advisors, and pupils for forming her course. “I wished to have the ability to state to my kids, ‘Mom makes robotics to assist individuals’– so I needed to make that come to life,” she shared. Her tale personified the spirit of the night– intelligence with compassion, and technology with mankind.

Looking Ahead

Elections are currently open for the fourth Yearly Ladies in Robotics Honors, consisting of the 2026 Robotics Medal and Increasing Celebrity Honor. Entries are approved with December 20, 2025, at TheRoboticsMedal.org, with receivers to be revealed at ICRA in Might 2026.

A Salute to the Future

As the evening shut and visitors collected for treats and mixed drinks, one message reverberated throughout the area: when we sustain ladies in robotics, we do not simply development innovation, we progress mankind.

The blog post Celebrating Innovation, Leadership, and Community: Highlights from the 3rd Annual Women in Robotics Medal Gala showed up initially on MassRobotics.