Ada-Rhodes Short facts for kids

Ada-Rhodes Short is a super smart Canadian engineer who builds robots! She's also a big helper for transgender people, working to make sure everyone is treated fairly. She even co-hosts a podcast called Totally Trans: Searching for the Trans Canon. She also helped start the very first LGBTQ student group at Baylor University.

Learning and Helping Others

Ada-Rhodes Short started her college journey at Baylor University in 2010. She earned her first degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2014. Later, she got a Master's degree from Colorado School of Mines in 2016. There, she studied how to make smart machines, like robots, make good choices even when things are uncertain.

She continued her studies at Oregon State University, where she earned her PhD. Her research focused on creating a computer program that could learn and make decisions, especially when unexpected or very rare events happen.

Ada-Rhodes is also very active in helping her community. In 2018, she gave a speech at the Corvallis Women's March. She talked about how some transgender people struggle to find enough food or a safe place to live. Because of her work helping others, she received the 2019 Soroptimists Ruby Award. This award honors women who help other women.

In 2021, Ada-Rhodes was involved in a big effort in Texas. She helped fight against new laws that would make things harder for transgender people. She also helped start a group called Trans Resistance of Texas (TRoT). This group works to protect the rights of transgender people.

Her Work with Robots

From 2014 to 2017, Ada-Rhodes worked as a mechanical engineer at a company called Sphero. While she was there, she helped create a special device that could move on its own. This device was used in the famous Star Wars BB-8 Robot toy!

After that, in 2018, she became a Senior Mechatronic Design Engineer at Lora DiCarlo. She worked there until 2020. In this role, she combined her skills in mechanics and electronics to design new products.