Trailblazers in Black History: Ayanna Howard

One of the World's Leaders in Robot Creation

Ayanna Howard is an electrical engineer who has made major advances and contributions to the field of robotics.  She was born in Providence, Rhode Island and graduated from John Muir High School in Pasadena, California.  She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from Brown University and her Master’s and Doctoral degrees in engineering from the University of Southern California.  She also holds an MBA from Claremont Graduate University.

Her graduate dissertation was entitled, “Recursive Learning for Deformable Object Manipulation,” which drew on her work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and focused on humanized intelligence, which allows human cognitive capability to be embedded into the control path of autonomous systems.  During her time at the laboratory, she helped develop the next generation Mars Rover, which uses artificial intelligence to be capable of exploring Mars’ terrain through independent thought rather than programming.

After her work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Howard was offered a position at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  While there, she has started her own laboratory, the Human-Automation Systems (HumAnS) Lab, which focuses on how to enhance the autonomy of robot functionality. 

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Source: The Black Home School