Star Trek got me into robotics: Dr Ayanna Howard

Students of Usha Mittal Institute of Technology (SNDT Women’s University) were introduced to the world of robotics through the words of a Star Trek and Bionic Woman fan-turned-robotics expert Dr Ayanna Howard.

Dr Howard spoke to students on Friday to inspire girls to take up robotics as a career.  “I was a huge fan of Star Trek and Bionic Woman so I went to medical school but got petrified of dissecting frogs. I was advised to look at engineering as a career,” said Dr Howard, director of Human-Automation Systems Lab and Motorola Foundation professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.

In the final year of graduate school, Dr Howard went to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she led research efforts on various robotic projects for Mars exploration.

Dr Howard now concentrates on the concept of humanised intelligence, which is the process of embedding human cognitive capability into the control path of autonomous systems. “We have developed robots which help visually impaired or autistic children to use technologies like tablet computers and make their life easy,” she said.

While Dr Howard is happy to see women in the field, she wishes there were a lot more. “Initially, I was even made to bring coffee at work because I was the only woman in the field. But today, the numbers have increased. I meet at least one or two women every month in the field,” said Dr Howard, speaking at the lecture organised by the US consulate.