The Future of Women's Health Begins at MIT

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Future of Women’s Health Begins at MIT

Podcast: Bloomberg Businessweek
Hosts: Carol Massar & Tim Stenovec
Guest: Rosalind Picard, Sc.D., Professor at MIT Media Lab, Director of Affective Computing Research
Date: September 12, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Bloomberg Businessweek spotlights how emerging technologies at MIT are shaping the future of women’s health, with a particular focus on wearables and affective computing. Professor Rosalind Picard shares groundbreaking research, the evolution and promise of wearable tech, and the persistent gaps in women’s healthcare and research—offering a preview of innovations poised to transform early detection, personalization, and data quality in medicine.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is Affective Computing?

• Definition & Purpose
  • Rosalind Picard (02:08): “‘Affective computing’ with an A is defined as computing that relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotion.”
  • The field began at MIT Media Lab and involves equipping computers with emotional intelligence.
• Real-World Applications
  • Early focus was on improving user experience in diverse environments (education, digital interfaces, driving).

2. Wearables: From Lab Innovations to Real-World Impact

• Evolution of Technology (04:09)
  • Began by creating systems (wired, then wireless) that could collect physiological data outside the lab.
  • Developed early wrist-worn devices and even earbuds capable of accurate heart rate monitoring as early as 2009.
  • Picard: “We built the first wrist watch that could monitor simultaneously signals like electrodermal activity and PPG, ... also … the first earbuds that actually worked with an iPhone that measured heart rate with consumer quality data.”
• Data Collection for Emotional & Physiological States
  • Wearables provide continuous, real-world data—shifting from anecdotal or sporadic accounts to rich, objective health metrics.
  • Example: Differentiating physical symptoms like a racing heart caused by anxiety vs. actual cardiac issues.

3. Persistent Gaps in Women’s Health Research

• Systematic Exclusion (05:41)
  • Picard: “It’s less than ten years ago that the National Institute of Health started even requiring scientists to include female mice and rats in their studies—before they were sticking with just the males to avoid the complexity of the female system.”
  • Outlines consequences: diseases and symptoms in women are understudied and under-measured.
• How Wearables Can Help
  • Objective, longitudinal tracking of symptoms like pain, sleep disruptions, and monthly cycles, aiding in better diagnosis and treatment.
  • Picard: “Now we can do those kinds of measurements with wearables.”

4. The Opportunity and What’s Next

• Market Readiness & Innovation Pipeline (07:48)
  • Picard: “Oh, probably about 1% of it has been achieved. There’s so much more we can do.”
  • Many cutting-edge innovations remain in the lab—far from commercial products.
  • Cites the slow adoption of lab breakthroughs by big tech (e.g., heart rate monitoring in earbuds).
• Cutting-Edge Example: Breast Cancer Detection (08:26)
  • Colleague Janan Dagdevran’s group is pioneering conformable technology for early breast cancer detection—providing comfort, frequency, and clinically significant data not possible with traditional mammograms.
  • Picard: “[It] allows people to get ... great data without the discomfort of ... being pancaked.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Goals of Affective Computing:
  “Initially it was about giving computers the skills of emotional intelligence. Then we started learning that a lot of people could use better understanding about emotion.”
  — Rosalind Picard (02:27)

• On Wearables and Women's Health:
  “There are so many conditions that are different for women than for men and they’re not only vastly understudied, but the kind of data is very under sampled... now we can do those kinds of measurements with wearables.”
  — Rosalind Picard (05:41)

• On the Need for Progress:
  “Probably about 1% of it has been achieved. There’s so much more we can do.”
  — Rosalind Picard (07:48)

• On the Promise of Conformable Breast Cancer Tech:
  “She has built conformable technology that shapes to the breast and, and allows people to get, you know, clinically significant great data without the discomfort of... being pancaked.”
  — Rosalind Picard (08:26)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:08–02:27 – Affective computing defined and introduced
• 04:09–05:13 – The evolution and milestones of wearable technology at MIT
• 05:41–06:35 – The gender data gap in health research; potential for wearables in bridging it
• 07:48–08:57 – The untapped potential of current technology and the example of next-gen breast cancer detection

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Takeaways

• Affective computing and wearables, incubated at MIT, are dramatically expanding what’s measurable and manageable in women’s health.
• Despite commercial advances, the vast majority of technological potential remains locked in research labs.
• Systematic bias in health research is only beginning to be addressed, with wearables opening new frontiers for objective, continuous data collection.
• Personalized, comfortable, and accessible tech—like new breast cancer detection devices—signal a future where women’s health receives the innovation and attention it has long lacked.
• The future is promising, but there’s a long way to go—“probably about 1% of it has been achieved.”

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Transcript

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[Rosalind Picard]

Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts Radio news.

[Bloomberg Host]

You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with.

[Carol Massar]

Carol Massar and Tim Stanvak on Bloomberg Radio.

[Bloomberg Host]

Let's get to the BusinessWeek Women's Health segment where we focus on key issues and developing technologies impacting the present and future of women's health around the world. We've got with us Rosalynn Picard, Doctor of Science Grover M. Herman, professor of Health Sciences and Technology at the MIT Media Lab, also Director of Effective Computing Research. She joins us from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Effective Computing what is it?

[Rosalind Picard]

Hi. It's such a pleasure to be here with you. Effective computing with an A is defined as computing that relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotion.

[Interview Host / Female Commentator]

Wait, okay, so wait, walk us through that. So it's in use today and how is it. What is it enabling us to do lots of things.

[Rosalind Picard]

It's an area started here at the MIT Media Lab decades ago and initially it was about giving computers the skills of emotional intelligence. Then we started learning that a lot of people could use better understanding about emotion. Also, working with many people who had difficulty understanding others emotions as well as their own, we started building wearable technologies that could monitor physiological changes in our body even even when we were leaving the lab, not just here, hooked up to racks of equipment.

[Bloomberg Host]

Then those physiological changes were documented, obviously for research. But in terms of helping others understand what a person is feeling or experiencing, how does that work?

[Rosalind Picard]

Yeah, so obviously emotions are very personal and very private. So we don't do any of that sharing of it without people's fully informed prior consent. However, there are a lot of times when people are confused about their own feelings. For example, a person's heart may be racing and they may think that they have a cardiac condition, but in fact, it may be their fear of a cardiac condition that is causing the heart to race. So the wearables let you collect data in the real world. In fact, we built some of the first wearables here in the media lab, at least the first ones I know of, that could monitor the cardiac information and the autonomic nervous system information, like your fight or flight response.

[Interview Host / Female Commentator]

So walk us through, because this is, as you said, wearable computers at mit, you've been working on this for. For over two decades. Walk us through a little bit of kind of where you guys, or how you were thinking about it a couple of decades ago versus kind of where we are today and the progress you've made and how it's evolved in terms of what wearables can do when it comes to really assessing our health.

[Rosalind Picard]

In the beginning, we were interested in emotions that could help make people's experiences better. Say in a learning experience, is the learner frustrated or bored or usability? Is this software driving, driving users crazy or is it a great experience? And automobile driving too? Is this situation on the streets stressing out people? Could we change the situation and have lower driver stress? So we started by building wired systems that could leave the lab. And then later we built versions with small wireless sensors that could go on jewelry. And in wrists, we built the first wrist watch that could monitor simultaneously signals like electrodermal activity and ppg, the photoplastysography that's used to extract heart rate today. And also you mentioned the Apple thing. We built some of the first earbuds that actually worked with an iPhone that measured heart rate with consumer quality data and published that, I believe it was back in 2009.

[Interview Host / Female Commentator]

Well, you know, I love what you are talking about and I think about as a woman, as a mother of a daughter, that when it comes to women's health specifically, I feel like there is a lot that's not paid attention to. Obviously there's been studies and research that really bear this out. So I'm curious about how technology or wearables can improve the health and health outcome and knowledge and assessment when it comes to women specifically.

[Rosalind Picard]

Thanks for asking about that. Women have definitely been left out of a lot of health studies. I learned that it's less than 10 years ago that the National Institute of Health started even requiring scientists to include female mice and rats in their studies before they were sticking with just the males to avoid the complexity of the female system. The opportunities are huge for health with wearables and especially for women's health. There are so many conditions that are different for women than for men and they're not only vastly understudied, but the kind of data is very under sampled. It's like asking somebody what they feel or what they experience instead of actually counting the way that the pain each month is affecting their life or the way that the disruptions at night are affecting their sleep. And now we can do those kinds of measurements with wearables.

[Bloomberg Host]

So what is the right technology in your view, that people, and specifically women, need to adopt in order to have this better understanding?

[Rosalind Picard]

Well, I'm not going to be promoting a particular product here today at the Media Lab. Our job is to make possible those future things. We're building the things that are pre product that are in some cases decades ahead of what will be out there. Sometimes we're also using commercial systems to gather data. So one example of that is we use a smartwatch that collects autonomic data and movement data and we're looking at the structure of what is enabling people to sleep better. Sleep is such a huge problem and it affects women differently than men and we need to help people fix it.

[Bloomberg Host]

So let me ask this question in a different way, which is when you look out at the products that are available with the context of what you've been working on for years at the MIT Media Lab, what has been harnessed and sort of what is still in the pipeline, what is still being researched, like what percentage of the opportunity that you think is out there has actually been achieved with the products that are on the market right now. Where are we in that timeline?

[Rosalind Picard]

Oh, probably about 1% of it has been achieved. There's so much more we can do. Yeah, there's a huge amount of stuff happening here that is not out there yet. As you saw, just like even from the pulse rate and earbuds. What did that take 17 years for Apple to get to their announcement? Actually other companies did it 10 years ago, so I don't know why they're just doing it now. But there are a lot of new innovations. For example, my colleague Janan Dagdevran is leading a group here to revolutionize the early detection of breast cancer and make it really comfortable and easy to monitor changes to avoid the kinds of nightmares of detecting cancer changing very fast between screens or people not going to get a mammogram or get screened because it's uncomfortable or it's expensive. So she has built conformable technology that shapes to the breast and, and allows people to get, you know, clinically significant great data without the discomfort of, you know, being pancaked.

[Interview Host / Female Commentator]

Unbelievable. And it is really interesting to see maybe how technologies we talked about kind of the health gap when it comes to men versus women, you know, whether or not technology can really help us. And wearables, fascinating stuff. I hope you'll come back and continue to kind of fill our minds with what's going on, especially when it comes to technology and wearables. Specifically. Rosalind. Rosalind Picard, she's director of science. Doctor of science, I should say. Grover M. Herman, professor of Health Sciences and Technology at the MIT Media Lab. Director of Affective Computing Research, joining us from Cambridge.

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