Ayanna Howard is an accomplished roboticist, entrepreneur and educator who made history in 2021, when she became the first woman dean of The Ohio State University College of Engineering. She previously served as the chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Interactive Computing, as well as the founder and director of the Human-Automation Systems Lab (HumAns). This lab uses techniques such as sensing and learning to enhance the autonomous capabilities of robots or other computerized systems.

From 1993 to 2005, Howard worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). During her tenure at JPL, she served as the senior robotics researcher and deputy manager in the Office of the Chief Scientist, and also played a key role in developing SmartNav, an autonomous, next-generation Mars rover.

Howard’s unique accomplishments have been recognized by numerous organizations. In 2015, Business Insider named her “one of the 23 most powerful women engineers in the world.” Three years later, Forbes named her to its 2018 list of “America’s Top Women in Tech.” In 2022, she was appointed to the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC). 

Howard’s current research encompasses a wide range of areas, from pediatric robots to mitigating bias in AI. She is the author of the bestselling audiobook, Sex, Race, and Robots: How to Be Human in the Age of AI, and has been profiled in Time, USA Today and Vanity Fair.

Howard earned both her master’s and doctorate in electrical engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.