Maja Mataric and grad student Jenny Chang check the wiring on a work-in-progress at the USC Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems. Photo by Tim Rue

Issue: Summer 2006

Girls & Gears

The Womanly Art of Robotics

Teacher and researcher, education activist and women’s advocate, mommy and Girl Scout leader, Maja Mataric is redefining what a female scientist can do.

A funny thing happened when Maja Mataric began focusing her research around robots that help people: More female students started knocking on her door.

“I find that I get a large number of women students at all levels because they really love the societal relevance,” she says. “They love the fact that if they build something, it might actually help someone and impact someone’s life.”

That’s good news, because women are still badly underrepresented in fields like engineering and robotics, although their numbers are growing. (At the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, 26 percent of undergraduates are female. The national average is slightly lower.)

Mataric is a big believer in the importance of role modeling; and she worries that too many young girls are still getting subtle messages that science is for boys. That’s one reason she developed a robotics program for middleschoolers. Supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the faculty-staff-funded USC Neighborhood Outreach program, Mataric and graduate assistant Jenny Chang are putting teachers at nearby Foshay Learning Center through a basic robotics curriculum and training. A teachers’ manual is in the works with funding from iRobot (makers of the Roomba vacuum cleaner) and Microsoft.

“Because it’s hands-on, the kids feel like they’re just playing,” Chang explains. “It engages them more, so they learn more.”

Mataric is also busy plugging the so-called “leaky pipeline” through which women who ought to be moving up in science and engineering careers trickle out of the profession. She currently chairs the USC Viterbi School’s Women in Science and Engineering program, aimed at boosting the number of tenured and tenure-track female professors.

“Maja has played a tremendous role in raising awareness about the need to recruit and retain more women faculty,” says Yannis Yortsos, dean of the USC Viterbi School. “That’s important because we need more women faculty to be able to attract and retain more women students.”

To make that happen, Mataric says more women – and men – have to challenge the mindset that women must choose between careers and raising their children. For her part, Mataric refuses to hire a “24/7 nanny.”

“My work stops at 6,” she says firmly. “And that doesn’t make me any less of a scientist.”

It does make her an asset to her 7-year-old’s Girl Scout troop. Mataric has made a point of leading the troop on scientific adventures, including tours of the USC Robotics Research Lab, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and the California Science Center. In the past, the pack had always asked dads to lead scientific projects.

“The Girl Scouts is a great organization,” Mataric says, “but why do we need dads to do the stuff that has to do with science and engineering? We need to show girls that women do this too, and we’re cool because of it.”

– Katie Sweeney