Ayanna M. Howard

Georgia Institute of Technology 2008/Rob Felt

“I was shielded from stereotypes during my young and impressionable years. I didn’t realize they existed until maybe middle school, and by then, I’d already decided I wanted to build the Bionic Woman."

Ayanna M. Howard, “Building the Bionic Woman," Science Magazine (AAAS), Oct. 9, 2014, https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2014/10/building-bionic-woman

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Ayanna M. Howard (1972) is a roboticist, entrepreneur, and educator. As a lead researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and then a university professor and dean, she has contributed significantly to artificial intelligence, computer vision, and robotics. Her research interests span human-robot interaction, home healthcare robots, therapy gaming apps, and remote robotic exploration of extreme environments, including the Arctic and Mars. To aid children with diverse learning needs, she founded a company that provides mobile therapy and assistive technology. In 2018 Forbes named her one of America’s top 50 women in technology.

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