Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy has won the 2020 NCWIT Pioneer in Tech Award. This award “recognizes technical women whose lifetime contributions have significantly impacted the landscape of technological innovation, amplifying the importance of capitalizing on the diverse perspectives that girls and women can bring to the table.” Recipients continue to serve as role models and inspire generations of young women.

In her first faculty position at UPenn, Bajcsy pioneered a new area of study within the field of robotics called Active Perception and was the first to argue that robots should be able to “autonomously control the movements of their own sensors and other apparatus for interacting with their environment.” She is also known for creating the first 3D computer atlas of the human brain, which helped revolutionize brain surgery by helping accurately locate tumors.  Bajcsy also established the process of elastic matching “in which computers match defined points in the human body with standardized medical images, enabling non-invasive diagnostics of the brain and other organs.”

Ruzena Bajcsy is the NEC Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at the University of California, Berkeley. Bajcsy has been a pioneer in the field of robotics throughout her long career, with research interests that include Artificial Intelligence; Biosystems and Computational Biology; Control, Intelligent Systems, and Robotics; and Human-Computer Interaction.