Karen Orton

Karen Orton has been working in the robotics and engineering field since 2014. Karen began their career as an Intern at Lexidyne LLC, where they helped design, format, research, and test various dynamic models. In 2015, they worked as an Assembly Tech Intern at Wolf Robotics, constructing custom robotic welding solutions. In 2016, they were an Intern at NASA's Johnson Space Center, developing a new autonomous demonstration for the dexterous robot, Robonaut2. In 2017, they were an Astrobee Flight Software Intern at NASA Ames Research Center, designing and building a fully functional simulator for the freeflying Astrobee robot. Karen also worked as a Plantery Robotics Mobility Researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, running tests on new designs for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars 2020 Rover wheels. In 2018, they were a Robotic Inspection Intern at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, building a Gazebo ROS Simulation of a quad-rotor robot. Currently, they are a Principal Engineer, Robot Software and Robotics Software Engineer at IAM Robotics.

Karen Orton received their Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute between 2013 and 2017. Karen then went on to Carnegie Mellon University, where they obtained their Master's degree in Robotics Engineering between 2017 and 2019.