Georgia Robotics has established a $5,000 fellowship to be awarded each year to an incoming Georgia Tech Ph.D. student. The fellowship is available to women and underrepresented minority students accepted to Georgia Tech’s robotics Ph.D. program through the School of Interactive Computing.

The intent of the award is to help Georgia Tech increase the number of women and minorities in robotics and computing, and it will be awarded to admitted Ph.D. students who have demonstrated significant academic accomplishment and potential. 

“We have far too few women and members of certain minorities, such as African Americans and Hispanics, working in robotics and computing,” said Henrik Christensen, KUKA Chair of Robotics and executive director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines. “At Georgia Tech, we’re striving to change this in a number of ways. This fellowship can help by bringing more folks to the field in the first place, and we’re grateful to Georgia Robotics for its generosity and support.”

Georgia Robotics was established in 2007 by Georgia Tech Associate Professor Tucker Balch to support robotics research and education at the Institute and around the state of Georgia, and the new fellowship delivers on the nonprofit organization’s mission. 

“We were created to support robotics research and education at Georgia Tech,” said Balch, now president of Georgia Robotics. “We’re extremely pleased to deliver on that mission in this concrete way.”

The one-time $5,000 award will be provided to one student each year.