Monitoring health with wearables during sleep

Circadian rhythms have widespread influence on human health, from sleep and alertness to metabolism and recovery. As wearable sensors become more sophisticated, new possibilities are emerging to track the body’s central clock outside of the laboratory. But turning raw sensor data into meaningful, actionable circadian insights remains a challenge. In this talk, we’ll explore how circadian biology is being translated into the real world through wearable technology, highlighting what we can measure today, where key challenges remain, and how new modeling approaches are helping bridge the gap between research and real-world application.

Lara is a bioengineering PhD Candidate at Stanford University and NIH F31 Predoctoral Fellow funded through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Her research is centered on understanding human health and performance through interpreting the hidden language of the body using wearable sensors measuring physiology, behavior, and biomechanics. Specifically, her thesis work, advised by Dr. Jamie Zeitzer in the Zeitzer Circadian Research Laboratory, explores the interplay between sleep, circadian rhythms, and the menstrual cycle, focusing on their influence on neuromuscular performance in women. Her research and training has previously been funded through the NeuroTech Training Program and Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance.

Prior to Stanford, Lara obtained a Bachelor’s in Biomedical Engineering, with minors in mathematics and chemistry, at the University of Vermont in 2020. She earned her Master’s in Bioengineering from Stanford University in 2022 and is expecting to complete her PhD in 2026.

Sleep apnea is a severely underdiagnosed disease, with as much as 80-90% of the population living with sleep apnea remaining undiagnosed, with the prevalence likely to continue to increase. Some estimates put moderate-to-severe sleep apnea prevalence beyond 25% with significant population quality of life impacts and associated economic costs, estimated >$150 billion USD. Broadly accessible and accurate identification of those undiagnosed individuals is the key first step to mitigating the impacts of this epidemic. Samsung’s Sleep Apnea Feature was developed and launched to identify those with signs of Obstructive Sleep Apnea from their own consumer-grade wearable. In this seminar, we will discuss this software-as-a-medical-device (SaMD) and the considerations in its development, validation, and regulatory clearance.

Dr. Matthew Wiggins leads the Health Solutions Lab within Samsung Research America’s Digital Health team in Mountain View, California, a team specializing in Health App development, launch and maintenance, including

• Software-as-a-medical-device (SaMD) apps like ECG Monitor Feature, Blood Pressure Monitor Feature, and Sleep Apnea Feature, including the associated regulatory, clinical/usability validation, risks management, and quality system deliverables,
• Wellness apps like Samsung Health, and
• Health Services, like HeartWise, a remote cardiac rehabilitation program, jointly developed and run with Kaiser Permanente.

He specializes in leading health service and medical device and programs involving signal acquisition, processing, and subsequent system inference with a focus on physiological systems and biosignals. Prior to his work at SRA, he led the Physiological Algorithms, QA, and RA teams in Samsung’s Strategy and Innovation Center where he led the development and FDA clearance of the Samsung Cardioband.  He has also led the Algorithm Software Group for HeartWare’s Ventricular Assist Device (HVAD) Pal controller (since acquired by Medtronic), an FDA Class III, safety critical medical device to keep late stage heart failure patients alive while they await a transplant.  Matthew has also won small business grants from the US government and led programs employing signal/image processing, sensor systems, and machine learning for energy monitoring/reduction, track/tag/locate scenarios, and high accuracy inertial measurement systems.

Dr. Wiggins received his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology as well as well as an Engineering Leadership certificate from UC Berkeley.