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754 COMEDY & DOUGHERTY

up with better ways to help these women experience just that. Ayanna Howard (11) is one such ambas-
less invasive procedures. sador. Dr. Howard’s accomplishments have been
Burg began creating and using injectable engi- highlighted through a number of awards and arti-
neered tissue systems to help problem-solve in the cles, including being named an MIT Technology
medical field. Understanding that every breast can- Review top young innovator and being recognized
cer patient is unique, Burg works to make their as one of the 23 most powerful women engineers in
treatments just as unique—personalized to their the world by Business Insider. Howard is chair of the
tumors and the tissue that surrounds them. Burg School of Interactive Computing (IC) at the Georgia
and her colleagues are using a device similar to a 3D Institute of Technology and chief technology officer
printer to create a scaffold on which they can grow a for Zyrobotics, a Georgia Tech VentureLab start-up
patient’s own cells, with tumor cells growing along- company that she founded in 2013. Her research
side them. She notes that using “tumor cells taken centers on the concept of humanized intelligence,
from the patient becomes very powerful and what the process of embedding human cognitive capa-
we call personalized because you’re getting informa- bility into the control path of autonomous systems.
tion very specific to that individual” (10) . Howard is licensing technology derived from her
Following through with her belief in the power of research and has released a suite of therapy and edu-
multidisciplinary problem-solving, Burg has worked cational products for children with special needs.
with more than eleven disciplines to accomplish both Jennifer Hall et al. note that “[t]he gender pat-
research and inventions. enting gap is economically very significant: closing
the gap among S&E degree holders would increase
commercialized patents by 24% and GDP per cap-
BUT ARE THERE ANY MORE? ita by 2.7%” (8). In addition, we hypothesize that
In the second year of the Invention Ambassador more of our critical problems would be solved by
program, we doubled the number of women, which closing this gap. Take, for example, change:WATER
would really be an exciting thing if we had had more Labs, where the Invention Ambassador team of Diana
than one in the first year. But, by 2017, in year num- Yousef and Huda Elasaad (12), respectively CEO
ber four of the Invention Ambassadors program, we and CTO, aim to develop and deploy safer, smarter,
selected six individuals and one team of two ambas- and more dignified sanitation. The Elasaad/Yousef
sadors—for a total of eight ambassadors, six of whom team is a marriage of invention, technology, water
are women. Twelve of our total 32 ambassadors from expertise, and business acumen. With their novel
2014 to today are female; an invention program with approach to toilets and waste disposal, especially
more than one-third women is significantly above the focused on women and girls, this AAAS-Lemelson
national percentage of who actually receives patents Invention Ambassador duo is tackling a major global
in the U.S. issue for people who have no electricity or plumb-
In all of our flurry of activity to create more ing. Answering the problem of the 2.6 billion people
diverse cohorts of Invention Ambassadors, our globally who lack safe toilet access, and the 1 billion
alumni ambassadors have been incredible sources forced to defecate openly, change:WATER Labs is
of recruiting new participants. Our ambassadors developing a technology-appropriate, low-cost, com-
are passionate about the AAAS-Lemelson Invention pact, waterless toilet for non-sewered households and
Ambassador vision to showcase the human face of communities.
inventors in order to inspire, inform, and influence Elasaad has an extensive academic and applied
thought leaders and global communities. If we are background in the water field. She has professional
going to inspire, we have to see as many kinds of experience internationally, including Mexico and
human faces as possible. If we are going to inform the Middle East, and in various facets of the water
and influence, we must have a diversity of voices. industry, including municipal plant operations for
While female inventors are currently less likely to wastewater treatment, desalination, and water pro-
commercialize a patent than male inventors, female cess engineering. She is cofounder of PV Pure and
invention ambassadors or their students have done consults in the field of commercial aquaculture.