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), and is currently enrolled in their Ph.D. program for Electrical Engineering. She maintains a Primary Care Paramedic license in British Columbia and is very active in youth robotics mentorship.
Rachael is working towards sub-task automation during chest tube insertion within the Robot-Assisted Space Telemetry (RAST) paradigm proposed by the Project neuroArm team. The goal of RAST is to support critical medical inteventions in isolated environments such as the Lunar Gateway via a teleoperated surgical robot with some semi-autonomous capabilities.