Women in Robotics - Women Shaping the Future of Robotics

This page lists all awardees for IFR's Women in Robotics since the initiation of this award in 2024.

Supporting the closing of the gender gap is one of the heartfelt activities of the IFR. In times of demographic change and an increasing lack of skilled workforce, economies around the globe cannot ignore a certain share of it. Moreover, it als proves benefitial for companies to increase diversity in their teams to increase productivity, competitiveness and innovation.

While the gender gap is narrowing down and the female labor force participation rate overall is increasing in many parts of the world, there still is a significant gap in the manufacturing sectors, in particular when it comes to female engineers and scientists. Here, the female participation rate is only half that of the secrvie sector in Euope, for example.

IFR thus each year acknowledges and highlights women in the robotics industry.

2026 awardees:

• Younseal Eum – CEO, AeiROBOT, South Korea
• Stefania Ferrero – CMO, Comau, Italy
• Christina Jørgensen – Marketing Manager, Northern/Eastern Europe, Universal Robots, Denmark 
• Allison Krumpe – President, HealthTech Partners Global, USA
• Henrike Neulen – Senior Business Development Manager, Intrinsic, Germany
• Asami Sasao – Manager in Design Dept. at Robot Division, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Japan
• Kristina Schunk – CEO, Schunk Group, Germany 
• Mikell Taylor – Director of Robotics Strategy, General Motors, USA
• Susanne Timsjö – ABB Robotics Nordics Manager, ABB Robotics, Sweden
• Dana Whalls – Vice President of Events, Association for Advancing Automation (A3), USA
• Prof. Rong Xiong – Cofounder and Chief Scientist, IPLUSMOBOT / Zhejiang University, China

2025 awardees:

• Albane Dersy, Co-Founder and COO of Inbolt, France
• Ashlie Taivalkoski, Director of Sales at SCHUNK, USA
• Dr. Caren Dripke, Head of Development Robotics at Lorch Schweißtechnik, Germany
• Julia Astrid Riemenschneider, CEO of Rethink Robotics, USA
• Kari DeSantis, General Manager, Corporate Marketing at FANUC America, USA
• Feng (Kate) Xu, Head of China R&D at ABB Robotics, China
• Kateryna Portmann, Senior Product Manager at ANYbotics, Switzerland
• Susanne Nördinger, UR+ Ecosystem Manager for EMEA and Head of Ecosystem Success at Universal Robots, Germany
• Yumie Kubota, Executive Officer and Department Manager, AI Robotics dept. at YASKAWA Electric Corporation/ President of AI Cube, Japan
• Yunzhi (Amber) Qi, Co-founder & General Manager of Overseas Business Division at YOUIBOT Robotics, China

2024 awardees:

• Yasmin Al Enazi, Director Business Development & Corporate Alliance UAE Country at MARSES Robotics, UAE
• Michelle Frumkin, Global Marketing Manager Robotics Segment - Abrasive Systems Division at 3M, USA
• Christelle Keefer, Global Product Manager / Education Director at ABB, USA
• Mar Masulli, CEO and Co-Founder of Bitmetrics, Spain
• Clionadh Martin, former Founder and CTO of Coalescent Mobile Robotics, Denmark
• Sofie Nilsson, Product Manager at Cognibotics, Sweden
• Daniela Sanchez, QC Engineer / QA Manager at Lionsbot, Singapore
• Dr. Nadja Schmiedl, former CTO at United Robotics Group, Germany
  
• Dr. Ulrike Tagscherer, Chief Innovation Officer at KUKA, Germany
• Dr. Xiaorui Zhu, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of RoboSense Inc., China

Our selection criteria:

• The suggested women needs to be active in the robotics industry
• We will select at least one per continent,
• but a maximum of one woman per company,
• consider different company sizes (large, medium, small)
• consider different company scope (Robot supplier IR, SR, component supplier, integrator) and
• consider different levels of hierarchy (C-level, intermediate, lower level)
• Proven track record in robotics / stand out as industry leader
• Proven activity in encouraging young people to go into STEM or that somehow support females in robotics

Please see also our playlist on YouTube.