Leanne Cushing

Leanne Cushing is a mechanical engineer and robot builder who captains BattleBots Team Valkyrie, with robotic-systems work spanning automotive, entertainment, automation and consumer electronics. After FIRST Robotics in high school, she earned a mechanical engineering degree with an aerospace focus at the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2010, then worked as a chassis design engineer at Husqvarna, where she co-invented a stand-on lawn care vehicle. She formed Team Valkyrie for the 2018 BattleBots season, and the robot won the Most Destructive award in 2020. In 2019 she was founder and CEO of Domovi, and by 2020 she held an R&D role at the farming startup OnePointOne. Since 2024 she again captains Valkyrie, which competed in the first BattleBots Pro League in 2026.

Now at: Team Valkyrie
Badges: Founder
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Timeline

2005–2010

Mechanical engineering at RIT

On a FIRST Robotics Competition team in high school, she finds her passion for mechanical design with help from mentors, including an engineer at Smiths Medical. She studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology from 2005 to 2010 and earns a BS in mechanical engineering with an aerospace focus.
2010–2014

Chassis design at Husqvarna

From October 2010 to December 2011, she works as a chassis design engineer at Husqvarna in Charlotte, North Carolina. With Kevin Oswald, Sean Dwyer and others, she is a co-inventor on Husqvarna's patent for a front-mounted stand-on lawn care vehicle, granted in November 2014.
2016–2018

Forming Team Valkyrie

She joins a BattleBots team for the 2016 season, which ends in disqualification. For the 2018 season, she forms Team Valkyrie with Frederick Moore, Alexander Crease and others, and BattleBots lists her in 2018 as the team's engineering lead.
2017

A Rev Boston honor

She receives the Rev 3 Top 20 Women in Tech award from Rev Boston in 2017.
2019–2020

Domovi and OnePointOne

BattleBots lists her in 2019 as founder and CEO of Domovi. Earlier, at data-backup company Datto, she overhauls hardware sourcing through partnerships with Intel and Gigabyte. By September 2020, she holds an R&D role at OnePointOne, a startup working to change how farming is done, and has more than 18 years of experience designing robotic systems for automotive, entertainment, automation and consumer-electronics applications.
2020

The Most Destructive award

Valkyrie wins the Most Destructive award in 2020, the team's first major trophy. Engineers from sponsor TE Connectivity help the team build a data-logging system that records the current flowing into Valkyrie's weapon motor.
2022–2024

Returning as Valkyrie captain

She hands the Valkyrie captaincy to Lucy Du in 2022 and takes a break from the team through 2023. Back as captain in 2024, she leads Valkyrie to a win in one of the BattleBots Face-Offs events, which qualifies the team for the BattleBots Pro League.
2026

The first BattleBots Pro League

In 2026, Valkyrie competes in the first BattleBots Pro League as one of its few remaining horizontal spinners, and she recaps the run with teammates John Mayo and Bam Singhasaneh on the Behind the Bots podcast in August 2026. She captains the team, drawing on two decades as a lead mechanical engineer in the automotive, aerospace, robotics and consumer product industries.