Taking stress to a new level
MIT spinout Neumitra brings an innovative approach to quantifying, understanding, and managing stress.
Robert Goldberg never spent much time thinking about fashion. All that changed six years ago, however, when as a visiting neuroscientist at John Gabrieli’s lab in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, he co-founded Neumitra. The Boston-based company develops wearable health sensors and analytics software that measure stress, a condition that Goldberg says costs the United States $150 billion in lost productivity and more than $190 billion in health care costs every year.
“I’ve probably looked at over 100,000 wrists over the last few years,” says Goldberg, now Neumitra’s CEO. “I look at wrists everywhere I go.”
That newfound fashion sense has helped define the trajectory of the company. “People don’t all like to wear the same thing,” Goldberg says. To meet Neumitra’s goal of compiling a large data sample for studying stress, and helping as many people as possible gain control over the condition, the technology needed to be integrated into as many wearables as possible. It was unlikely, Goldberg says, that millions of people would choose to wear a new health bracelet from a small startup.