Rachael L'Orsa completed two degrees at the University of British Columbia: a Bachelor of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering (2010) and a Bachelor of Arts in French and Spanish (with Computer Science minor, 2011). She received a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Calgary (2016), where she compensated for the flexibility of elastic robot joints within teleoperation schemes using neural networks. She also received a Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering from the University of Calgary (2024) for work aimed at improving urgent needle-insertion surgery sub-tasks by automating the detection of puncture events using lightweight, data-driven algorithms.
Rachael's current research interests include time-delayed teleoperation, cognitive workload, and haptic feedback.