Mikell Taylor

Raised in Columbus, Ohio and now living in San Francisco, Mikell Taylor is a self-described robotics geek. She leads a team called Sky Machines at private research company Otherlab. Sky Machines is working on a variety of novel autonomous aerial platforms - drones, but not in the way you're thinking! Previously, she spent seven years as a Systems Engineer at Bluefin Robotics. Bluefin, based in Boston, designs and manufactures autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs. These swimming robots investigate shipwrecks, ice floes, chemical characteristics, and other curiosities in the depths of the world's oceans. Mikell has also worked on manufacturing robots, planetary rovers, and autonomous ground vehicles, not to mention quite a few different robotic athletes through the FIRST Robotics Competition. In the future she hopes to share her robot geekiness with the world by commercializing robotic consumer products. She obtained her Electrical and Computer Engineering degree from Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA in 2006 as a member of the inaugural class, and in 2011 she was selected as a Woman to Watch by Mass High Tech. Mikell loves to travel, whether for work or for pleasure, and she is an avid reader who doesn't go anywhere without her Kindle.