IFR’s Women in Robotics 2026
11 Women Shaping the Future of Robotics
Mar 05, 2026 — IFR is promoting women in robotics, giving them more visibility and acknowledgment in order to inspire girls and young women to pursue a career in STEM subjects or robotics and help companies to reach gender equality and overcome shortage of staff.
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 also proves beneficial 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 service sector in Europe, for example.
IFR thus each year acknowledges and highlights women in the robotics industry.
2025 awardees are:
- 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
We will introduce each woman one after the other on our website with a detailed profile, introducing her career path, explaining what made her decide for a career in robotics and her motivation to engage in STEM and robotics to inspire other young women to follow her way.
You can find more details on the selection criteria here.
Please see also our press release at https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/women-in-robotics-2026-awarded-by-ifr
