Akane Sano wins NSF CAREER Award

Akane Sano - Engineer developing software to predict emotional stress from wearable and Internet of Things tech Forget the mood ring. Akane Sano has a far better idea. The Rice University electrical and computer engineer is developing software to detect and predict emotional stress in people through data from wearable and mobile technologies and provide safe and personalized feedback to manage and enhance emotion. She has received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award to pursue that goal. CAREER grants are awarded each year to fewer than 400 early career scientists and engineers who are expected to make significant impacts in their fields of study. The five-year, $550,000 award will bolster Sano's ongoing development of algorithms to interpret the growing deluge of data about one's personal health from wearable and Internet of Things technologies. According to Sano's proposal, technology is already capable of gathering moment-to-moment physiological, behavioral, social and environmental data on the mobility patterns, sleep and central and peripheral nervous system activity of people, all without disrupting their daily routines.