December 21st, 2015 – Ada Lovelace, the first woman in the world to program a computer who was not recognized in full for her contribution to the development of information technology, would have been proud of these 25 women. All distinguished themselves in 2015 in the field of engineering and particularly in robotics. And thanks to their contributions, there has been good progress in research. In this list, drafted by RoboHub – a large and global virtual community that includes thousands of scientists – there are two Italian scientists: Cecilia Laschi of the Biorobotics Institute of the School Sant ‘Anna of Pisa and Barbara Mazzolai of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genoa. Barbara Mazzolai began her career at the School Sant ‘Anna of Pisa and is now the coordinator of the Centre for Micro-biorobotics of ITT in Pontedera (Pisa), housed in the same complex of the Biorobotics Institute, where Cecilia Laschi coordinated the robotics project inspired by the movements of an octopus that led to the creation of the first soft robot. Barbara Mazzolai today heads the Plantoid Project, to develop the world’s first robot inspired by plants. (Red)
