A Coffee Chat with Women in Robotics

Women in Robotics has partnered with Vecna Robotics to host a panel discussion with four women in the field of robotics. We are honored to announce our panelists, who hold both technical and non-technical roles at Boston-based Vecna Robotics.

The discussion would cover day-to-day of the lives of these industrious women, going from skills required to work as a robotics developer to managing technology startup.

Please RSVP for the event, where you will have the opportunity to submit your questions in advance of the discussion. We look forward to your participation!

Meet our panelists:

Kay Perkinson Chief of Staff, Vecna Robotics

Kay Perkinson is the Chief of Staff and Interim VP of Advanced Development at Vecna Robotics. She is responsible for organizing and aligning strategic priorities with members of the senior leadership team, designing and facilitating cross-company process and communications, and supporting the CEO on strategic initiatives. Kay has held a variety of non-technical roles across various industries, including solar technology, healthcare, and finance. She holds a B.A. in Environmental Sciences from Northwestern University, where she played center midfield on the Division I Varsity Womens Soccer team. Kay lives with her husband, Jim, an Engineering Manager at Boeing, and children, Ashton (17), Logan (4), Evan (3), and Benjamin (2), at their family home in Winchester, MA.

Diandra Drago Director of Human Resources, Vecna Robotics

Diandra Oliveira serves as Director of HR at Vecna Robotics, where she is responsible for implementing and executing internal programs, policies, and initiatives around employee engagement and performance, diversity and inclusion, corporate training, and immigration. She is an SHRM Senior Certified Professional and has completed Veterans at Work and Employing Abilities at Work certificates. Diandra previously served as Director of Talent Acquisition for both Vecna Robotics and its healthcare IT predecessor, Vecna Technologies, and started her career as a Project Manager. She graduated from MITs Sloan School of Management with a B.S. in Management Science and spent 3 years in combined computer science and mechanical engineering program. As an undergraduate, she served as both President of MIT Society of Women Engineers and as a Career Fair Director, where she first met Vecna. Diandra lives in Billerica with her husband, Bruno, and daughters Annalise (4) and Carolina (2).

Zoe Snape Product Architect Enterprise Software, Vecna Robotics

Zoe Snape is the Product Architect for the Enterprise team at Vecna Robotics, supporting client integrations work, and working on scaling up our products and platform. Zoe started out working on the first release of Vecna Robotics's web-based tool used to monitor and administrate robots. From there, she was involved in robotics projects like next-gen VGo, OmniEye, QCArmBot, and more. She grew up in Tacoma, Washington, and got her bachelor's in EECS (6-3 for the MIT crowd) in 2015. Currently, she is in Seattle (working from home for 3 years) with her partner who is currently getting his Ph.D. in Astronomy from UW. In her free time, she loves to bake and go for long walks, work out while watching cartoons, and tend to her pea plants and tomatoes in the balcony.

"It's been really cool over the last three years to watch these robots go from being a couple of franken-bots struggling to navigate around cones in an unused corner of someone else's manufacturing facility to a real fleet of dozens of units doing real work at customer sites, with a real manufacturing division, a real support team, and a real deployments team. I'm excited to see where the next three years takes us!"

Janani Mohan Robotics Software Engineer, Vecna Robotics

Janani Mohan works as a Robotics Software Engineer at Vecna Robotics. She has a Master's degree in Robotics Engineering specialized in Swarm Robotics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She was previously employed as an Embedded Systems Engineer at Bosch India. The world of machines and automation has always inspired her and she enjoys making fun hobby projects. The first robot she made is a human following robot called Vodabot which is like a faithful pet but also helps transport items from different rooms, aimed to help the elderly carry items within their household. She envisions a future in Robotics with her contributions to inventing technologies which makes life easier. Apart from Robotics, she is passionate about learning new skills and spends her free time with her plants.

PS: Join Women in Robotics Boston group to stay tuned for monthly events: https://meetingplace.io/women-in-robotics-Boston