by Kristina DeMichele

STEPHANIE GIL’S first exposure to robot teams didn’t even happen on this planet. During her freshman year at Cornell, she interned with NASA and participated in the agency’s Mars Exploration Rover mission. NASA sent two robots named “Spirit” and “Opportunity” to different extremes of the planet. “I saw how robots could be our explorers and counterparts in faraway places that we can’t easily or safely reach,” she says, becoming inspired by how the robots worked in coordination to achieve a goal: “I realized that robot teams could also make a big difference...