Alumna’s research led to ‘smart bra’ prototype

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Microsoft researchers have designed a smart bra that can detect stress, according to an online BBC news article. UNC Charlotte alumna Erin Carroll (Ph.D. ’13, computing and information systems) was the lead on the project during a research internship at Microsoft in summer 2012. She also completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University in 2008.

“I had my hands in on almost every aspect of the project,” said Carroll, now a post-doctoral associate in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Rochester.  “I generated research questions, designed the experiment, wrote code for analyzing the data and conducted the user studies.  I also had some hands on R and D (research and design) with the bra itself.”

Carroll and other researchers published the paper “Food and Mood: Just-in-Time Support for Emotional Eating” that pointed out a bra “was ideal because it allowed us to collect EKG (electrocardiogram) near the heart,” noted the BBC story. According to the paper’s abstract, the researchers were focused on building a persuasive system for behavior modification around emotional eating.

The article said the smart bra prototype contained removable sensors that monitor heart and skin activity to provide an indication of mood levels.