Donna Auguste, Ph.D. is the Founder/CEO of the Auguste Research Group, where she works extensively with sensors and sensor data fusion. She is an advocate for diversity in STEM education. She received her doctorate from the University of Colorado Boulder.
What interests you in STEM? I became interested in designing robotic systems that use data from multiple sensors to reason about the environment and take action based on the data that they fuse together. I also find that robots are a fun way to introduce STEM and data science careers to youth.
Who are your mentors? My mother and maternal grandfather were my first mentors; they taught me about perseverance through their lived experiences. Dr. Allen Newell, Dr. Jaime Carbonell, and Dr. Mike Williams were my early mentors in Artificial Intelligence.
What words of wisdom would you give to students in robotics? Develop the ethics requirements of your robotic systems during the early phases of design. Work as hard on the inclusion of underrepresented voices as you work on the hard technical problems. As you develop robotic solutions for people, include those people and include the secondary and tertiary communities that will be impacted by the systems you are designing.
