Ayanna M. Howard

Infobox_Scientist
name = Ayanna M. Howard

---

caption =
birth_date = birth date and age|1972|1|24
birth_place =
death_date =
death_place =
residence = Atlanta, Georgia
nationality =American
field = Robotics
work_institution = Georgia Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory
alma_mater = University of Southern California
Brown University
Claremont Graduate University
doctoral_advisor = George A. Bekey

Ayanna MacCalla Howard (born 1972) is an American roboticist and an Associate Professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. To date, her unique accomplishments have been documented in over 12 featured articles - including being named as one of the world's top young innovators of 2003 by the prestigious Technology Review journal [cite web|url=http://www.technologyreview.com/tr35/Profile.aspx?Cand=T&TRID=295|title=2003 Young Innovator - Ayanna Howard, 31|accessdate=2008-07-04] and in TIME magazine’s "Rise of the Machines" article in 2004. [cite news | first=Dan | last=Cray | coauthors= C. Miranda, W. Rothman, Oko Sekiguchi| title=Rise of the Machines | date=June 6, 2004 | publisher= | url =http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040614-646372,00.html | work =TIME Magzine | pages = | accessdate = 2008-04-06 | language = ] In 2008, Howard received world-wide attention for her SnoMote robots, designed to study the impact of global warming on the Antarctic ice shelfs. [ [http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?id=1905 GT | Robots Go Where Scientists Fear to Tread ] ]

Biography

Education

Ayanna Howard received her B.S. in Engineering from Brown University in 1993 and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1994 and 1999, respectively. Her thesis "Recursive Learning for Deformable Object Manipulation" was advised by George A. Bekey.

Howard also holds a M.B.A with a concentration in Strategy from Claremont Graduate University in 2005.

Career

Shortly after finishing her undergraduate studies at Brown, Ayanna Howard joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she led research efforts on various robotic projects utilizing soft computing methodologies such as computer vision, fuzzy logic, and neural networks. She primarily worked on the Mobility Systems Concept Development as a Senior Robotics Researcher, and the Technology Review journal named her as one of the world's top young innovators of 2003 for her work in this area. In 2005, Howard left JPL to join the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an Associate Professor, and founded the Human-Automation Systems Laboratory.

Research

Howard describes her research as "centered around the concept of humanized intelligence, the process of embedding human cognitive capability into the control path of autonomous systems".

Honors and Awards

* JPL Technology and Applications Program (TAP) Honor Award, 2000
* Lew Allen Award of Excellence for significant technical contributions, 2001
* NASA Honor Award for Safe Robotic Navigation Task, 2002
* San Francisco Airport Museum Honoree, African-American technology trailblazers in California, 2002
* Best Paper Award, 9th International Symposium on Robotics and Applications, 2002
* NASA Space Act Award for Path Planning Graphical User Interface, 2003
* MIT Technology Review Top 100 Young Innovators of the Year, 2003
* Engineer of the Year Award, Los Angeles Council of Engineers and Scientists, 2004
* Allstate Insurance Distinguished Honoree for achievement in science, 2004
* Selected participant, NAE Symposium on Frontiers of Engineering, 2004
* NASA Space Act Award for Fuzzy Logic Engine for Space Applications, 2004
* Selected presenter, National Academy of Science Frontiers of Science Symposium, 2005
* California Women in Business Award for Science and Technology, 2005
* IEEE Early Career Award in Robotics and Automation, 2005

Trivia

* Howard has an Erdös Number of 4: A. M. Howard - Vittorio M. Canuto - George Keith Batchelor - George G. Lorentz - Paul Erdös.

References

External links

* [http://users.ece.gatech.edu/ayanna/ Home Page]
* [http://www.ece.gatech.edu/faculty-staff/fac_profiles/bio.php?id=135/ ECE Profile]