Apple has hired Yoky Matsuoka, a cofounder of Google’s experimental Google X division and former vice president of Technology at Nest, to work on some of its health initiatives. Fortune reports that Matsuoka is working under Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams on the company’s health initiatives, which include HealthKit, ResearchKit, and the recently announced CareKit.
Matsuoka has worked on multiple tech and health initiatives at several big-name companies. After leaving Google X for Nest, Matsuoka helped develop the algorithm for the company’s flagship thermostat; her departure from Nest about a year after its 2014 acquisition by Google is one among many. For about a year after leaving the search giant, she worked at Quanttus, a troubled startup working on blood pressure monitoring technology. And shortly before being diagnosed with an apparently cured illness in May, she was headed to Twitter to take a VP position, though this ultimately didn’t end up happening.
HealthKit and the Health app were introduced as part of iOS 8 in 2014, and are intended to store and share health tracking information collected from HealthKit-compatible apps with other HealthKit apps and with healthcare professionals. ResearchKit, announced and launched in early 2015, is meant to help researchers gain in-depth data about participants over a longer period of time than would normally be possible. And CareKit, unveiled by Apple in March of this year and officially launched just a few days ago, is meant to help patients recover from major procedures and manage chronic illnesses.
