Sara Laprade is Chief of Staff for Technology and R&D Partnerships at Boston Dynamics, the world leader in advanced mobile robots. She is a strategic advisor and is building scalable engineering and research platforms to accelerate solving complex problems in the disruptive robotics world. Sara joined Boston Dynamics from Berkshire Grey, where she spent two years as a Principal Engineer in the eCommerce automation space. Sara’s career has spanned across 13+ years in shipping, logistics, research, and robotics industries. Six of those years were with Amazon, starting with sortation center launches and finishing in the Amazon Robotics space; formally known as Kiva Systems. Prior to Amazon, Sara spent time at FedEx Ground as a hub engineer across both the US and Canada. Sara is currently part of the Johns Hopkins M.Sc. Systems Engineering program, and holds a B.Sc. in Industrial & Management Engineering from RPI, where she was an active member of the Society of Women Engineers, the Institute of Industrial Engineers, and the RPI Equestrian Team.