Erin Smith (entrepreneur)
Erin Smith | |
|---|---|
| Born | Lenexa, Kansas, United States |
| Occupation(s) | Innovator, business founder |
| Years active | 2016–present |
| Known for | Founder of FacePrint, facial recognition tools for Parkinson's diagnosis |
| Awards | Thiel Fellow (2018), European Patent Office Young Inventor Award (2022), Davidson Fellow (2018), Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar (2018), Wired Top Health Startup (2019), Forbes 30 Under 30 (2019), Voices of the Year by Seventeen Magazine (2020) |
Erin Smith is an American innovator and business founder. She established FacePrint, a medtech company that creates facial recognition tools designed to aid in the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. In 2018, Smith was honored as a Thiel Fellow, and in 2022, she secured the Young Inventors Prize awarded by the European Patent Office.
Biography
Smith grew up in Lenexa, Kansas, a suburb within the Kansas City metropolitan area. She has two older sisters and two younger brothers.
Her interest in Parkinson's disease was sparked during high school after viewing an interview with Michael J. Fox, who lives with the condition, where she observed a certain emotional detachment in his facial cues. Inspired by the television series Lie To Me and the facial expression research conducted by Paul Ekman, Smith directed her efforts toward developing technology capable of diagnosing Parkinson’s through facial analysis. She undertook studies comparing involuntary versus deliberate facial expressions among individuals with and without Parkinson’s, utilizing Affdex facial recognition software. With backing from The Michael J. Fox Foundation, she carried out two pilot studies, one of which involved participants mimicking emoji expressions while watching Super Bowl advertisements.
In 2016, Smith earned the top prize in the BuiltByGirls Future Founder competition held at Twitter headquarters, receiving $10,000 to further develop her application and pursue patent protection. She also benefited from guidance provided by the University of Missouri–Kansas City Small Business & Technology Development Center to establish FacePrint as a commercial enterprise.
Selected for the prestigious 2017 Research Science Institute program at MIT, Smith completed high school in 2018 and postponed her enrollment at Stanford University to accept a two-year Thiel Fellowship. Beginning in 2019, FacePrint entered clinical trial phases in collaboration with Stanford Medical School and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
While at Stanford, Smith acts as an ambassador for the IF/THEN collective, advocating for increased representation of women in STEM fields.
Awards and honors
- 2017 International BioGENEius Challenge
- 2018 Davidson Fellow
- 2018 Global Teen Leader
- 2018 Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar awarded by the Society for Science and the Public
- 2018 Thiel Fellow
- 2019 Wired Top Health Startup
- 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30
- 2020 Voices of the Year, recognized by Seventeen Magazine
- 2022 First place recipient of the European Patent Office Young Inventor Award