This Women’s History Month, we spoke with 3 women with a variety of industry experiences about what they’ve learned from working in robotics.
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From left to right: Kali Hamilton, Kait Peterson, and Sonali Deshpande. | Sources: Scythe Robotics, Locus Robotics, and Relay Robotics
Women are an underrepresented group within the robotics industry. Today, women make up 48% of the total workforce and just 34% of the STEM workforce, according to the National Girls Collaborative Project. When it comes to engineering and robotics roles, the number is even smaller, with women only making up about 16% of the workforce.
This gap means that many women in the robotics industry often struggle to find colleagues who understand their challenges, mentors who can offer guidance, and companies that are willing to take a chance on them. These women may feel alone and wonder if there’s anyone who can understand their perspective.
This Women’s History Month, I spoke with three women with a variety of industry experiences about what they’ve learned from working in robotics. The first was Sonali Deshpande, a staff robotics software engineer at Relay Robotics. Deshpande’s passion for robotics came organically from her love of machine learning and control systems.
Next was Kali Hamilton, a field robotics engineer at Scythe Robotics. Hamilton’s path to robotics was non-traditional. She originally earned a degree in political science and worked at a food justice non-profit in Philadelphia called Philabundance. Here, she observed how automation could improve food distribution, which led her to pursue robotics.
Finally, I spoke with Kait Peterson, the vice president of product marketing at Locus Robotics. She has worked in supply chain tech for over 15 years. Peterson also runs the Feminist Exec, a website dedicated to highlighting women in leadership roles and providing resources for women navigating their careers.
Community is important
All three women in robotics agreed that having a community of like-minded women has undoubtedly changed their careers.
“I think having a community is really important, and I realized that early, even in my undergrad,” Deshpande said. “I was super passionate about building stuff and doing practical engineering things, but I didn’t have anybody I could talk to or form a team with.”
Deshpande said she noticed that it was much easier for the men around her to connect with one another. In response, she started a lab at her university to find like-minded people.
Today, Deshpande, Hamilton, and Peterson are all part of various women in robotics groups. This includes organizations at their companies, as well as outside groups like Silicon Valley’s Women in Robotics.
“When you share your experiences, you realize that a lot of the things that you thought only you are going through, a lot of people are going through the same things,” Deshpande said. “Knowing that can be super powerful because you know you’re not alone, and you know this is a common problem. Somehow, just knowing that other people are going through the same thing gives you a little bit of strength, or perspective, to help you break out of it.”
Find mentors and advocates
While it’s important to find peers with whom you can share experiences, it’s just as important to find mentors and advocates who can help you reach the next steps of your career.
“Having mentors whom I could turn to with so many questions has been invaluable, and I still reach out to them semi-regularly when I need career advice,” Hamilton said.
These mentors can come in many forms, whether it be women or men, people at the company you work at, or people who don’t even work within the robotics industry. Alongside these mentors, it’s also important to have advocates, or people who would stand up for you in difficult situations.
Peterson saw the power that an advocate can have firsthand. She recalled a meeting where a client deferred to the men in the room instead of her, despite the fact she was heading the project they were working on. Eventually, her boss noticed how she was being passed up for every question, even though she was the person best equipped to provide an answer.
So, he started redirecting the conversation. This simple act created space for Peterson to show her expertise and feel like she truly belonged at that table. “It’s harder to elbow your way in than if somebody offers you a seat,” Peterson said.
“Have advocates. I’ve had people, women or men, who have been very supportive of me, expected great things from me, and advocated for me. I think that’s really important as well,” Deshpande said.
Boston Dynamics hosted a MassRobotics Women in Robotics event. Credit: Sayo Tirrell, MassRobotics
Don’t let imposter syndrome hold you back
Another thing all of the women I spoke to agreed on was imposter syndrome. This is a psychological phenomenon in which a person feels like they haven’t truly earned their accomplishments or don’t deserve recognition. It’s common for women in traditionally male-dominated fields or any other underrepresented groups.
“Imposter syndrome is real,” said Peterson. “There are two ways to think about imposter syndrome. One is that it can be damaging if you take it too far to an extreme, where you only apply to a job if you’re 100% qualified, rather than if you’re 70% qualified or even 50% qualified.”
“I think it’s also healthy in some when you talk about humility and ego. All of the leaders I’ve worked for that are incredible leaders are the opposite of egotistical,” she continued. “They’re humble. Our CEO, for example, was helping to scrub the floors at ProMat this week.”
On the flip side, robotics companies and other industry leaders have the opportunity to help women within the industry feel like they belong. “Where women tend to get their hands-on experience is a little differently, and valuing that equally is important,” Hamilton said.
It’s also important to remember that there’s plenty of space within the robotics industry.
“There used to be this scarcity mindset of like, if there’s going to be a woman on the board, there’s only one seat, and you have to compete for that one seat instead of dragging more chairs to the table,” Peterson said.
How can the industry embrace more women?
With such a large gender gap, it’s clear the robotics industry needs to make some changes to pull more women into the fold. For some, that change needs to start early.
“The most important thing is to try and get more women into STEM at the beginning of the pipeline,” Deshpande said. “Ultimately, just having a lot of women in the company and on the team is going to make a big difference. It’ll change the fabric of the company’s culture and the decision-making, and that itself will help.”
Peterson echoed this sentiment, noting that Locus is the most diverse company she has worked for. “This is the most creative, productive, and inspiring workplace that I’ve been in, because you get the opportunity to learn from people’s different perspectives and backgrounds,” she said.
Additionally, there are many small ways the industry could change to make things easier for those coming from different backgrounds. For example, Hamilton said it’s typical for robotics developers to use Xbox controllers to operate these robots.
Typically, companies assume that anyone who interacts with that robot will know how to use the controller, so they don’t provide additional instructions on how to use the controller.
“When I started at Tortuga, and I think this is a fairly common practice, we were using Xbox controllers to manually drive robots between tasks. And I didn’t grow up playing video games at all,” Hamilton said.
Learn from Deshpande, Hamilton, and Peterson at the Robotics Summit
Desphande, Hamilton, and Peterson will all be speaking at the 2025 Robotics Summit & Expo, which takes place April 30 and May 1 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
At the show, Deshpande will take part in the panel “Nuts & Bolts of Robotic Navigation.” She will discuss the levels of indoor navigation she helped develop at Relay.
“The goal of the [levels] is to create a common vocabulary for people to talk about. So when say, ‘It’s a level two robot,’ you know immediately what I’m talking about,” Deshpande said.
Hamilton will be taking part in the show’s field robotics track, a passion of hers.
“I think one of the exciting things about field engineering, when you take robots into an outdoor field, is all of the external, environmental variables you end up with,” she said. “That’s what makes it such a particularly challenging but exciting field.”
Hamilton plans to discuss the fundamental tiers of field support that she helped establish at Scythe: design engineering, robotics engineering and service, customer support, and self-service documentation. Her session is titled “Field of Dreams: Turning a Scalable, Resilient Field Service Program into Reality.”
Finally, Peterson’s talk, “Case Studies: How Automation is Changing the Warehouse,” will dive into the challenges of warehousing and how to solve them with automation.
“I have an actual case study for each category, real-life customer stories. So you can see how others are doing it, not just hear from another vendor about how great our software is or how great our robots are,” she said.
The Robotics Summit & Expo will feature its second annual Women in Robotics Breakfast, a ticket add-on, at 8:00 a.m. ET on May 1.
The event will bring together more than 5,000 industry professionals to explore the latest advancements in motion control, AI, sensing, software development, humanoids, and more. The event features over 200 exhibitors, more than 50 educational sessions, five keynotes, and hands-on demos, making it a must-attend gathering for those shaping the future of robotics.
The summit also offers networking opportunities, a Career Fair, a robotics development challenge, the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards Gala, and more.
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