May 8th, 2025 – Ultrahuman, a leader in health optimization technology, is proud to announce a significant collaboration with Lehigh University focused on advancing women’s health and wellness. This partnership, supported by the Lehigh Internationalization Grant awarded in October 2024 and Spring 2024 Lehigh Faculty Research Grant, aims to enhance understanding of women’s health through cutting-edge wearable technology and research initiatives.
Ultrahuman’s commitment to advancing women’s wellness is underscored by two key research projects being led by Lehigh University in partnership with Ultrahuman. The first project focuses on exercise training load titration i.e.- monitoring how training loads, heart rate variability (HRV), and heart rate changes during the menstrual cycle affect sportswomen, specifically basketball players with translation to other sports such as soccer (football). By tracking how these physiological markers fluctuate during various phases of the menstrual cycle and adjusting the type of training, the project seeks to optimize performance, recovery, and long-term health for female athletes.
The second initiative focuses on menstrual cycle and heart health awareness in young women in semi-rural India. This program is a collaboration between Lehigh University, KG Hospital in Coimbatore, and IIT Palakkad. The initiative aims to raise awareness about the physiological changes that women experience during their menstrual cycles, including how heart metrics and other biometrics fluctuate over time. Ultrahuman has donated Ring AIR devices with its proprietary free cycle tracking power plug to support this initiative, providing young women in these regions with valuable health insights and help empower them to take control of their well-being.
Research in the Seshadri lab focuses on the development, validation, and translation of wearable technology and bio-integrated devices to enhance human health and performance. Dr. Seshadri has a personal passion and research interest in the intersection of global health and bioengineering, towards improving patient outcomes. As an Indian-American, Dr. Seshadri is driven to bridge the gap between social stigmas surrounding menstrual hygiene and technical disparities surrounding the cost and accessibility of wearable technologies for women’s health in lower and middle income countries (LMICs). His goal is to leverage research, education, and service to drive change globally to reduce stigma and empower young women.
“Wearable technologies have the potential to revolutionize women’s health by offering continuous, real-time monitoring and enabling early intervention,” says Rupa Ravi, a global health consultant for the Seshadri Lab. “In maternal and pregnancy monitoring, these devices can track critical indicators such as blood sugar levels in gestational diabetes and blood pressure in hypertensive disorders, providing valuable data that can drive timely interventions and significantly improve outcomes. Beyond maternal health, wearables also empower individuals to track menstrual cycles, manage pain, and monitor symptoms related to gynecological conditions.”
“We want to normalize conversations around women’s health, while giving athletes data to articulate and support their subjective experiences,” says Hayley Whitney ’24, a PhD student in Seshadri’s lab who leads the project. “We also want to give trainers and coaches the tools to support every aspect of the athlete. Partnering with Ultrahuman has been exciting because we’re able to discuss what’s needed and truly useful. Their energy around wearables and innovation makes every conversation feel like progress.”
“We are excited to collaborate with Lehigh University on enhancing the research on women’s health,” said Mohit Kumar, Founder and CEO of Ultrahuman. “By using wearable technology, we can provide real-time, actionable insights that will benefit women across different stages of life; whether they are athletes or young women deriving actionability from their menstrual cycle in correlation with their biomarkers.”
The Ultrahuman Ring AIR is the world’s lightest sleep-tracking wearable, designed to provide comprehensive insights into health and wellness. Weighing just 2.4 grams and measuring 2.45 mm in thickness, the Ring AIR is equipped with advanced sensors to monitor key biometrics, including sleep architecture, heart rate variability, movement, recovery levels, stress rhythms, and more. It serves as the foundational device for both of Lehigh University’s projects, delivering precise data on health metrics in real-time.
Ultrahuman’s health optimization platform works seamlessly with the Ring AIR, providing users with personalized recommendations based on their biometrics. This powerful combination allows researchers and individuals to gain deeper insights into the effects of training loads, stress, and recovery on women’s health, and optimize wellness strategies accordingly.
The ability to track movement, stress, and recovery is crucial for overall well-being, particularly for female basketball and soccer athletes, who experience lower extremity injury rates like anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears at a far higher rate than their male counterparts. The Ring AIR offers real-time data on activity levels, sleep quality, and stress rhythms, allowing users to understand how their bodies are responding to training, exertion, and recovery. For female athletes, this data is essential for optimizing training loads, managing stress, and ensuring optimal recovery, especially during different phases of the menstrual cycle. By combining exercise and recovery data with insights into menstrual health, Ultrahuman’s wearable technology can help women tailor their fitness and wellness routines to their specific physiological needs.
At the heart of Ultrahuman's wearable technology ecosystem are PowerPlugs: personalized apps and plugins that leverage the data collected by the Ring AIR. These PowerPlugs enable users to unlock deeper insights into their health, tailoring recommendations and actions based on their specific needs. Designed to optimize key health markers, PowerPlugs expand the capabilities of the wearable rings by allowing for customizable features that focus on a wide range of health aspects, from caffeine intake and vitamin D levels, to cardiovascular health.
As part of Ultrahuman’s ongoing commitment to advancing women’s health, PowerPlugs are crucial for tracking and optimizing menstrual health.
Some of the key PowerPlugs that will play a central role in the collaboration with Lehigh University include:
1. Cycle and Ovulation Tracking PowerPlug: This PowerPlug allows women to track their menstrual cycles, providing actionable insights into their reproductive health. Those who want to conceive can monitor ovulation with multi-biomarker based precision. It predicts the fertile window and ovulation dates, helping women optimize their chances of conception by providing accurate and timely insights into their reproductive health.
2. Pregnancy Mode PowerPlug: Aimed at expectant mothers, this feature provides tailored advice on nutrition, activity levels, and health monitoring, ensuring the safety and well-being of both mother and baby.
These PowerPlugs will be integrated into the research at Lehigh University, where they will be used to monitor key aspects of menstrual and reproductive health for women across different stages of life.
The collaboration between Ultrahuman and Lehigh University aims to establish usable benchmarks for women’s wellness. Historically, health data has been largely derived from male-dominated studies, leaving critical gaps in our understanding of women’s health. By focusing on women’s unique physiological needs, this partnership is working to fill these gaps and create a comprehensive framework for monitoring and optimizing women’s health. These efforts will not only advance research but also help develop personalized health strategies for women, whether they are professional athletes, or young women learning about their menstrual health for the first time.
This partnership is a perfect example of how Indo-US research collaborations are helping to address global health challenges. The integration of wearable technology with academic research creates an unparalleled opportunity to collect and analyze data on women’s health, helping to inform better health strategies worldwide. By combining academic rigor with cutting-edge technology, Ultrahuman and Lehigh University are making important strides in women’s health research.
