Theresa Robinson has a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her academic research was in numerical optimization applied to computational fluid dynamic problems, and robust and surrogate-based optimization algorithms. She was an assistant professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at Queen’s University Belfast from 2008 to 2012.

In 2012 she joined Rolls-Royce Deutschland, where she has worked on robust optimization of aircraft engine exhaust systems, safety and reliability analysis and simulation, and python development of internal tools. Currently she is the technical lead for Engine Network, a tool to help Rolls-Royce analyse, visualize, forecast the behaviour of in-service aircraft engines.