URIs_MOMENTUM_Research_and_Innovation_Magazine_Spring_2026_M

Weaving Medical Treatment into Everyday Life Growing up in a small town near Ahmedabad, India, Kunal Mankodiya was surrounded by his family’s textile business. At the same time, he was drawn to biology and medical sciences in his studies. As a graduate student in Germany, he found a way to combine the two, integrating sensors into fabric to create wearable health devices. Now a professor of biomedical engineering at URI and director of the Wearable Biosensing Lab, Mankodiya creates clothing that can help doctors diagnose and monitor diseases in daily life environments. A $600,000 NSF CAREER award in 2017 helped him grow the lab and long-term vision. “I would not have accomplished anything without federal and state research funding,” he says. “It essentially changed my life.” His first project was a smart glove, designed for people with Parkinson’s and other diseases that cause mobility issues. Patients wear it at home to complete finger exercises, generating data that an app transmits to physicians. “You don’t need to wear the gloves 24/7,” he says. “You perform exercises two or three times a week— just for a few minutes at a time. We use signal processing and algorithms to define the severity of symptoms through telehealth.” The data from gloves and shoes can help doctors titrate medications more accurately, avoiding overdoses and missed doses between clinic visits. With help from a 2019 NSF Partnerships for Innovation Tech Transfer grant, the project became the foundation for a startup, WellAware. One of his former Ph.D. students, Nicholas Constant ’15, MS ’17, PhD ’21, now leads the company full-time, aiming to bring early cognitive screening tools to rural and underserved communities. WellAware received a couple of SBIR and other state funds for clinical validation, helping towards commercialization. His lab has also helped inspire other students to spin off several other companies, including Pison, co founded by David Cipoletta ’14 MS ’19, which uses wrist-worn chips to detect electrical muscle signals for gesture control, recently striking a deal with Timex. Later, his team expanded to smart shoes as well.

Another company, WellFit Wearables, spearheaded by current doctoral student, Vignesh Ravichandran MS ’21, Ph.D. ’26, focuses on gastrointestinal monitoring for endurance athletes using a sensor belt. The project recently took advantage of an NSF I-Corps award to conduct customer discovery interviews with more than 110 health professionals about knowing the real-world problems associated with gut health and how the device could be useful. Most recently, his lab has partnered with undergraduate business alum and URI rowing captain Nicole Jones ’24 on AnalytIQ, which aims to monitor cardiovascular stress in rowers. “We work closely with doctors and clinicians,” says Mankodiya. “As a technologist and engineer, we can propose thousands of things, but they’re not going to help anybody if their requirements are different and not met.” With nearly $16 million in NSF funding the lab is expanding to cover the full human lifespan, from neonatal monitoring to stroke rehab and chronic kidney disease. “Pursuing translational research constantly pushes you to think differently—which is a good thing—because in the scientific world you want to find ways to make impacts through translation and entrepreneurship and serve societal needs.” Mankodiya says. “In the process of technology translation, you are challenged to think beyond boundaries and learn real problems existing in outside lab environments such as patients homes, clinics, and hospitals. That mindset—of thinking beyond boundaries—is something I strive to pass on to my student innovators and entrepreneurs.”

Mankodiya (pictured left) and his students in his research lab.

SPRING | 2026 Page 51