We are happy to announce the newest awardees of the ROBOPROX Women Forum grants for young female researchers in robotics. As the first recipients of 2025, these talented ladies are embarking on exciting new projects that will shape the future of robotics research. This article highlights their innovative work and research they’ll be advancing in the coming year.
Jitka Mertlová
FIT CTU
Student, Software Engineer
1/2025 – 12/2025
Mapping and Analyzing the Space of Elections: Distance Metrics and Voting Dynamics
What project will you be working on?
I’ll be working with election datasets with the goal of achievinig insight into how to aggregate a set of preferences so that the aggregated result is both fair and useful. To this end, I try using distance metrics in vector spaces, embedding algorithms and all the other useful tools that graph theory and algebra give me.
What inspired you to pursue a career in STEM?
I think I was first charmed by chemistry and physics and later by maths, which paved the road to computer science. And since it turned out I have a knack for graphs and algorithms, I sticked with it.
What are you most looking forward to in your work and what are the biggest challenges you have faced in your research?
I enjoy the creative process of putting the ideas together so that they create something new and meaningful. At the same time, though, sometimes you simply can’t make the pieces fit and you get stuck instead. And getting unstuck often requires to scrap a lot of your own work and approaching the problem anew, which can be a difficult thing to do.
Kamila zeleňáková
FEE CTU
Student
3/2025 – 8/2025
Image processing for agile drones flying fast in interiors
What project will you be working on?
I will be working on developing image processing algorithms that enable autonomous drones to reliably detect static obstacles at high speeds in indoor environments. The goal is to address issues like motion blur and the jello effect caused by fast drone movement and rolling shutter cameras. This research will help drones navigate more safely and quickly in complex environments like warehouses and factory floors, improving their efficiency and extending battery life.
What inspired you to pursue a career in STEM?
I have been interested in mathematics since elementary school, but I think my love for informatics came from my high school informatics teacher. We programmed in Pascal from the first year and she gave us quite creative assignments (at the end of the second year we had programmed our own game). She also explained things very nicely and clearly. I still have the memory of her holding different pencils and explaining how bubble sort works on them.
What are you most looking forward to in your work and what are the biggest challenges you have faced in your research?
I’m really looking forward to exploring methods that I can use in my work. Since I am studying Computer Vision and Image Processing, I hope to use and expand my current knowledge. I see the biggest challenge in implementing the algorithm in a real environment and on a real drone.
Viktorie valdmanová
FEE CTU
Student Researcher
3/2025 – 8/2025
Scheduling of Robotic Surgeries
What project will you be working on?
I’m developing an innovative AI-driven scheduling algorithm for surgical operations that specifically accounts for robotic surgery systems. This research aims to optimize hospital resource utilization while improving patient care.
What inspired you to pursue a career in STEM?
STEM allows me to be creative while working on real problems. What makes it especially rewarding is seeing how technical solutions can directly help people – like in healthcare, where better scheduling could mean less stress for doctors and faster treatment for patients.
What are you most looking forward to in your work and what are the biggest challenges you have faced in your research?
I’m most excited about creating tangible improvements in healthcare delivery by freeing medical professionals from unnecessary burdens, allowing them to focus more on patient care. The biggest challenge for me lies in tackling the inherent complexity of the problem while keeping the solution stupid simple.