Ada-Rhodes Short

Last updated

Ada-Rhodes Short
Born
Calgary, Alberta
CitizenshipCanadian
Alma mater Oregon State University
Scientific career
Fields robotics, computational cognition, design
Institutions University of Nebraska Omaha, Sphero, Lora DiCarlo
Thesis
Doctoral advisor Bryony DuPont

Ada-Rhodes Short is a Canadian mechanical engineer, roboticist, and transgender rights activist. [1] She is the co-host of the podcast Totally Trans: Searching for the Trans Canon alongside writer Henry Giardina. [2] She is a co-founder of Baylor University's first LGBTQ student group. [3] She is a co-creator of Osé, a hands-free device for blended orgasms, which won a 2019 CES Innovation Award in the robotics and drones category.

Contents

Education and activism

In 2010, Short attended Baylor University and attempted to gain recognition for a club to discuss sexuality and combat homophobia. [4] [5] This group became Gamma Alpha Upsilon, Baylor's unofficial LGBTQ student organization. [6] She gained her Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2014. She has a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines (2016), where she modeled risk for autonomous decision making. Short completed her PhD at Oregon State University under Dr. Bryony DuPont, publishing a dissertation on building a computationally cognitive agent that can handle black swan events. [7] In 2018, Short delivered a speech at the Corvallis Women's March on food instability and housing insecurity in the transgender community. [8] She was the recipient of the 2019 Soroptimists Ruby Award for Women Helping Women in recognition of her mutual aid and activism work. [9] In 2021 Short was involved in the fight against anti-trans legislation in Texas and helped start the protest group Trans Resistance of Texas (TRoT). [10]

Career

Short worked at Sphero as a mechanical engineer between 2014 and 2017, and co-developed a patented multi-body self-propelled device that was used in the Star Wars BB-8 Robot toy. [11] Then, she was hired as Senior Mechatronic Design Engineer in 2018 by Lora DiCarlo, a sexual technology company, where she worked until 2020. [12] While at Lora DiCarlo, Short co-developed the Osé, a hands-free device for blended orgasms. [13] The Osé won a 2019 CES Innovation Award in the robotics and drones category. [14] The award was rescinded due to a CES policy forbidding indecent companies from exhibiting on the show floor, but later reinstated after CES organizers were accused of sexism. [15] [16]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Control engineering</span> Engineering discipline that deals with control systems

Control engineering or control systems engineering is an engineering discipline that deals with control systems, applying control theory to design equipment and systems with desired behaviors in control environments. The discipline of controls overlaps and is usually taught along with electrical engineering and mechanical engineering at many institutions around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Engineering</span> Applied science and research

Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to solve technical problems, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve systems. Modern engineering comprises many subfields which include designing and improving infrastructure, machinery, vehicles, electronics, materials, and energy systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mechanical engineering</span> Engineering discipline

Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and maintain mechanical systems. It is one of the oldest and broadest of the engineering branches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UC Berkeley College of Engineering</span> Engineering school of the University of California, Berkeley

A Bachelor of Engineering or Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded to a college graduate majoring in an engineering discipline at a higher education institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynn Conway</span> American computer scientist and electrical engineer (born 1938)

Lynn Ann Conway is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer and transgender activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oregon State University College of Engineering</span>

Oregon State University's College of Engineering is the engineering college of Oregon State University, a public research university in Corvallis, Oregon. U.S. News & World Report ranks OSU's engineering college 69th in the nation for 2024. The ranking makes the college one of the top two in the Northwest, while the college's nuclear engineering school ranks 12th nationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donna Shirley</span>

Donna Lee Shirley is a former manager of Mars Exploration at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is the author of the book Managing Martians: The Extraordinary Story of a Woman's Lifelong Quest to Get to Mars—and of the Team Behind the Space Robot That Has Captured the Imagination of the World.

The Faculty of Engineering is a constituent body of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. UNSW was formed on 1 July 1949, and the Faculty was established on 8 May 1950 with the inaugural meeting of the Faculty taking place on 7 June 1950. It was one of the first three University faculties which were established by Council, and was initially formed of four departments including Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Mining Engineering, headed by Dean Professor Harold Brown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of engineering</span>

The concept of engineering has existed since ancient times as humans devised fundamental inventions such as the pulley, lever, and wheel. Each of these inventions is consistent with the modern definition of engineering, exploiting basic mechanical principles to develop useful tools and objects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of women in engineering</span>

The history of women in engineering predates the development of the profession of engineering. Before engineering was recognized as a formal profession, women with engineering skills often sought recognition as inventors. During the Islamic Golden Period from the 8th century until the 15th century there were many Muslim women who were inventors and engineers, such as the 10th-century astrolabe maker Al-ʻIjliyyah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnes Morley Cleaveland</span> American writer and cattle rancher

Agnes Morley Cleaveland (1874–1958) was an American writer and cattle rancher who lived in New Mexico and California. Her book about growing up on a New Mexico ranch in the late 19th-century, No Life for a Lady, was a best seller. She was active in politics and journalism as well as in public speaking and as a women's club organizer.

Alice Merner Agogino is an American mechanical engineer known for her work in bringing women and people of color into engineering and her research into artificial intelligence, computer-aided design, intelligent learning systems, and wireless sensor networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abbie Hutty</span> British mechanical engineer

Abigail Hutty is a British mechanical engineer based in Stevenage. She has worked as the lead structures engineer on the European Space Agency ExoMars rover, now the Rosalind Franklin rover vehicle. In 2016, she was elected as the youngest ever Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. She advocates the science and technology education of young people and promotion of careers in the space industry. Her public appearances have included the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and The Sky at Night.

Ellen Roche is an Irish biomedical engineer and Associate Professor at MIT in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Institute of Medical Engineering and Science. She has contributed to heart failure prevention with her inventions, the Harvard Ventricular Assist Device (HarVAD), a soft-robotic sleeve device that goes around the heart, squeezing and twisting it to maintain the heart’s functionality, and Therepi, a reservoir that attaches directly to damaged heart tissue.

Chiara Daraio is an Italian-American materials scientist and acoustical engineer. She is the G. Bradford Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology.

Cynthia R. Sung is an American roboticist known for her research on foldable robots. She is Gabel Family Term Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Computer and Information Science, at the University of Pennsylvania.

Marcia Kilchenman O'Malley is an American mechanical engineer, the Thomas Michael Panos Family Professor in Mechanical Engineering and associate dean for research and innovation for the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice University. Her research concerns "systems for enhancing the human sensorimotor control system", including work on exoskeletons, neuroprosthetics, haptic technology, and brain–computer interfaces.

Allison Mariko Okamura is an American mechanical engineer and roboticist whose research concerns haptic technology, teleoperation, remote surgery, and robot-assisted surgery. She is the Richard W. Weiland Professor in the School of Engineering and a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University, where she directs the Collaborative Haptics and Robotics in Medicine (CHARM) laboratory and maintains a courtesy appointment as professor of computer science.

References

  1. ↑ "Building the Robotic Brain: Dr Ada-Rhodes Short curates Real Scientists". Real Scientists. Medium. 28 February 2021. Retrieved 22 July 2021.
  2. ↑ Short, Ada-Rhodes; Giardina, Henry. "Totally Trans: Searching for the Trans Canon". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  3. ↑ Howard, Meredith (6 October 2020). "LGBTQ community fights for rights at Baylor, in Waco". Baylor Lariat. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  4. ↑ Eckholm, Erik (18 April 2011). "Even on Religious Campuses, Students Fight for Gay Identity". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  5. ↑ Kincaid, Rachel (20 April 2011). "Christian Colleges Find Christian Students Remain Gay Despite Christianity". Autostraddle. Retrieved 22 July 2021.
  6. ↑ Howard, Meredith (6 October 2020). "LGBTQ community fights for rights at Baylor, in Waco". Baylor Lariat. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  7. ↑ Short, Ada-Rhodes. "Autonomous Decision Making Facing Uncertainty, Risk, and Complexity". Oregon State University. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  8. ↑ Smith, TIffani. "Thousands marched through Corvallis in commemoration of Women's March". The Daily Barometer. Archived from the original on 14 May 2021. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  9. ↑ Short, Ada-Rhodes (31 May 2019). "Soroptimists International Corvallis, Ruby Award Speech". Ada-Rhodes Short, PhD. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  10. ↑ Gira Grant, Melissa (9 August 2021). "Behind the GOP Strategy to Outlaw Trans Youth". The New Republic. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  11. ↑ Clarke, David; Webster, Douglas; Nutting, Judd; Keeney-Ritchie, Miles; Short, Adam; MacGregor, Ross. "Multi-body self propelled device with magnetic yaw control". Google Patents. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  12. ↑ "Lora DiCarlo Hires PhD Robotics Engineer Dr. Ada-Rhodes Short". BioSpace. Lora DiCarlo. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  13. ↑ Lorenzo, Doreen (23 May 2019). "The problem with aspirational design (and what designers should do instead)". Fast Company. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  14. ↑ Safronova, Valeriya (18 January 2019). "What's So 'Indecent' About Female Pleasure?". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  15. ↑ Haddock, Lora (17 January 2019). "Our robotic pleasure tech won a big award. Then they took it away". The Washington Post. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  16. ↑ Zraick, Karen (9 May 2019). "Sex Toy Award Is Restored by Trade Show After an Outcry Over Sexism". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.