Apple Taps Google X Co-Founder Yoky Matsuoka To Work On Healthcare Initiatives
By Jof Enriquez,
Follow me on Twitter @jofenriq
Yoky Matsuoka, a Google X co-founder and former VP of technology at home automation products company Nest, is reportedly joining Apple to help the company with its healthcare initiatives. After a professional hiatus, the highly-regarded neuroroboticist is taking on a new challenge as Apple deepens its dive into healthcare with its mobile-based software frameworks.
Matsuoka will be working for Apple COO Jeff Williams, who oversees the company's trio of healthcare platforms: HealthKit for developing health and fitness apps, ResearchKit for medical apps and clinical studies, and CareKit for individuals monitoring their own health, reports Fortune.
Matsuoka has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, and holds M.S. and a Ph.D. in the same disciplines from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Prior to co-founding Google X (now called “X”) — the research division of Google (now under Alphabet, Inc.) — in 2009, Matsuoka spent a decade in academia at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Washington in Seattle as a professor of robotics. She received a MacArthur Foundation award in 2007 for creating a robotic hand that responds to neural commands, and for the use of virtual environments to aid therapy for stroke patients.
"By illuminating the biomechanics of the hand and experimenting with robot-human interfaces that alter the neural control of movement, Matsuoka is making technological advances that hold life-changing potential for those suffering from serious brain injuries and reduced functional capabilities," states her bio at the MacArthur Foundation's website.
According to Matsuoka’s LinkedIn profile, during her time at Barrett Technology until 2010, she was "responsible for productizing BarrettHand (chosen as the DARPA arm challenge robot, the Guinness Book of World Records 2000 "most advanced robotic arm")."
In 2010, Matsuok joined Nest, where, as VP of technology, she developed the company’s learning algorithms for automating its products, according to Forbes. Matsuoka left Nest in 2014 after it was acquired by Google. She then planned to join Twitter, but an undisclosed illness made her consider otherwise.
In a blog post in Medium last year, she said her treatments are working, but she had not decided what to do next.
"I am spending time with my family and working on some personal projects. But I can’t imagine leaving the world of technology and what has been a passion for me. I want to work again, but also want to take time to construct this new life I have been so blessed to be given," she wrote in her blog.
At LinkedIn, she also lists herself as CEO of medical wearable startup Quanttus between 2015 and 2016, her last official position prior to Apple's hiring.