First Joanne Pransky Scholarship Winners Announced
First Joanne Pransky Scholarship Winners Announced
Celebrating Joanne's passion for science fiction and women in robotics!
In 2023, Women in Robotics launched a Scholarship Fund on Bold.org to commemorate Joanne Pransky (1959-2023) and her passion for science fiction and women in robotics. Joanne billed herself as the ‘word’s first robot psychiatrist’ and Isaac Asimov himself called her the real life Susan Calvin. Robin Murphy shared an obituary for Joanne on Robohub.org.
Inaugural Joanne Pransky Scholarship Winners
Scholarship applications opened at the end of 2023 with the goal of contributing to the college expenses of three women who were interested in robotics. We set a fundraising target of $10,000, primarily from friends and family, to enable us to fund an ongoing award. We were thrilled to receive an additional $20,000 from the Engelberger Foundation. Joanne would have been delighted!
Applications closed on Feb 29, with 172 entries. It was tough narrowing it down to only 3 winners, when there were a number of great applications and so we hope to also provide awards to some of the runners up.
The judging criteria
The selection criteria, aside from interest in robotics, were ambition, drive and impact. And writing a short science fiction story, or essay about the challenges or opportunities of robotics in the near future, in honor of Joanne’s passion for sci-fi.
For ambition, we looked at the awareness of the robotics field and goals within it. For drive, we considered the difficulties overcome, ie. being neurodivergent, first generation college or low income. For impact, we looked at how much the applicant gave back to the community, as a role model. And of course, the impact that their story or essay had on the judges.
More about the winners
Quynh Anh Le has started a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering at Lehigh University. Her passion is to use her engineering skills to positively impact the medical world. During high school she discovered robotics with her competition team GART 6520 and fell in love with the potential for robotics to solve real world problems, like the assisting the aging population and improving medical technology.
Mariana Cruz-Gonzalez is a first generation and low income student who had to move three times during high school due to the pandemic. During this time she participated in three FIRST robotics teams, TEXplosion (FRC), Rouse Raider Robotics (FRC), and Techno Inferno (FTC), and started taking dual credit courses at Austin Community College.
I am currently at ACC working on an Associates in Creative Writing and General Engineering. I have great hopes in transferring into a Mechatronics, Robotics, or Mechanical Engineering Bachelor's program in Texas.
Mariana consider both engineering and writing to be acts of creativity, working together and used her sci-fi story to explore the viewpoint of an engineering class experiencing some of the safety and ethical issues in new technologies.
Isle Vaughn is doing a Bachelors in Biomedical/Medical Engineering at the University of North Texas and is a passionate human rights advocate as well. As a queer person with autism, and also a transman in Texas, whose goal is to make prosthetics and help people dealing with limb loss. Isle wrote an essay about identity and how we determine what is and isn’t human, and what is and isn’t an alien or a robot.
Future Plans for Women in Robotics Fund
Firstly, we will reopen the Joanne Pransky Scholarship to make awards to the runners up, although it’s going to be open to any entrant. Next season (2024/25) we will increase the number of prizes available, as once we can’t change live scholarships.
We’ve also created a great judge and advisory panel, who might decide that an additional Joanne Pransky summer scholarship for undergraduates, masters or PhD students would be a good complement to the initial Joanne Pransky Scholarship aimed at juniors, seniors and first year college students.