MassRobotics announces the winners of 2026 Robotics Medal and Rising Star awards

amazon — allison Okamura and Ayoung Kim won MassRobotics’ Robotics Medal and Rising Star Medal. |

The Robotics Medal recognizes the wide-ranging impact of female researchers focusing on the development of robotics around the globe. It goes to a nominated woman in robotics to recognize her impactful contributions to the field. The award includes a $50,000 prize awarded to the individual. The 4th Annual MassRobotics Robotics Medal award, sponsored by Amazon Robotics, was presented to Dr. Allison Okamura. She is the Richard W. Weiland Professor in the School of Engineering, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and a science fellow in the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Okamura earned the award for her foundational research in haptics, medical robotics, and robot design. She was also recognized for her contributions to open access robotics education, mentorship, and promotion of women in robotics. The Rising Star Medal recognizes up-and-coming women making strides and advancing the field of robotics and includes a $5,000 award. MassRobotics this year awarded Dr. Ayoung Kim, a professor at Seoul National University, its Rising Star in Robotics Medal. Kim earned the honor through her work in pioneering Scan Context for lidar place recognition and advanced resilient multi-sensor SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) for robust autonomy. Widely used open datasets and tools supported this work. “We were thrilled by the overwhelming number of outstanding nominations we received this year and were impressed by the diversity of robotic research happening across the globe,” said Joyce Sidopoulos, co-founder and chief of operations at MassRobotics.